March 26, 2023
Dear Adventure Avenue,
We slept in today. I got up at 9:15am and probably could’ve gone back to sleep, but I decided to get up and have my pain au chocolat from Paul’s yesterday for breakfast and made myself a cup of chamomile tea from the hotel’s tea selection (chamomile and green).
I sat in the window doors looking out into the garden.
Once Mere woke up, we went to the front desk and were able to book a private guided tour of the Cité. Then we walked to find something to eat. There were crepes at a place less than 5 minutes away at Le Saint Louis. I did just a fromage (cheese) and Mère had cheese, ham, and mushrooms. We took them back to the room and ate them on our little garden patio.
In the meantime, while waiting for our tour at 3, we rested inside. It started raining a little.
Our tour of the Castle was amazing!
We had this little old French lady who made the best sound effects – especially when it involved medieval death. There were a lot of hidden defense traps on the ramparts where the defenders could drop giant rocks on the heads of intruders.
We explored inside the castle which there wasn’t much to see but it’s a means to get to the ramparts. We did see some authentic stone works from Roman time.
We climbed up and down many flights of stairs as we traversed the ramparts. It was amazing!
Then the weather went from beautiful to heavy rain as we were out in the open air. Luckily I’d brought my hooded jacket and Mere had her scarf. We sought refuge in the towers as we waited for the rain to slow.
At one point it started hailing! The wind was so strong that the hail blew over the walls on a diagonal. We waited for it to stop in a tower.
We finished our tour in the cathedral and admired the stained glass windows. There was a door open to an alter that apparently isn’t usually open, so we went down there and she told some of the history of this bishop who had a rags to riches story – meaning he was a peasant who a church official could tell wanted to learn, so he was inducted into the church.
We then walked to the far gate with our tour guide and she explained more history along the way. All in all we really enjoyed it.
We hung out in the room for a bit before going to the bar downstairs where I enjoyed a Virgin mojito.
For dinner, we went to a really cute place called l’escargot. And you guessed it, I had escargot! Mere had scallops and swordfish. I had the menu (prefix) situation so I had beef for my main course and then a pain perdu (French toast) which was amazing. It was basically a caramel butter cake.
We were blown back to the hotel by the wind and got ready for bed.
The mistral* wind is no fantasy, that’s for sure! It was blowing so much that it sounded like it was raining as we went to sleep.
Until Tomorrow,
A
*We found out later that the Mistral wind is a Provencial (region Provence) thing – not of the area where we were in. Nonetheless, the wind was very strong!
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