France - July 2007

Carcassone

For Keith's parent's 40th anniversary, they hosted a Dodds family vacation near Carcassone, France.  It was a big contingent: in addition to us were Jean/Dick, Margaret/Damon/Owen, and Graham/Amy/Max/Lily. 

Accommodations:

Rented Villa (Carcassone) - This was a huge house 12 miles up a windy road in the hills southeast of Carcassone.  It had five bedrooms, cribs/highchairs, a massive lounge that could have been 20x50 feet, a table that seats 12, and an outdoor pool. 

Park Hyatt Vendome - A gorgeous hotel overlooking the Rue de la Paix where Keith and Shawna stayed our last night in France. 

Activities:

We flew to Toulouse via Paris on Friday July 20th, arriving in Paris on the Saturday morning in time to catch a connection to Toulouse.  We arrived a couple hours after the rest of the family, so we rented a tiny car and headed to the villa.  Keith's parents had rented a 9 person van for the trip, and Graham also had a car for his family to tool around.  By the time we arrived at the villa, Keith's parents had already been by Carrefour to stock up on beer, wine, and all the food staples needed.  Since the day was mostly gone, we just relaxed at the house that night over a dinner of wine, cheese, BBQ chicken, and salads. 

Tour de France

We started the next day with breakfast on the big table, with fresh croissants that Dick fetched from the village - he did this every morning of the trip (maybe to get out of the house for a while?).  As luck would have it that day, the Tour de France passed 12 miles from where we stayed so we all navigated narrow country roads and showed up an hour before the cyclists.  It was pretty cool to see them powering by in their colorful jerseys (as they were going uphill) so we watched for a while.  Once they had all passed, we headed into the town of Carcassone and grabbed moule frites for lunch before heading back to the house.

Monday, we headed out to see the weekly market at Mirepoix, a 10th century village about 30 miles away.  We walked the market, had some lunch, then headed back to the house.  The babysitter arrived in the early evening so that all the adults could abandon the gremlins so we could go to a nice restaurant for Jean and Dick's anniversary. 

Mirepoix

On Tuesday, we headed to the coast to the salt town of Gruissan.  We went to a small salt museum, went for a walk, and then looked for a place for lunch.  It was tricky to find - many places were closed by the time we were looking at 2pm - in fact we sat at one, ordered drinks, and then found out that they had stopped serving lunch.  We eventually found another place on the harbor that served multiple versions of moules frites - so were satiated!  That evening we headed to dinner for "sibling night" - Keith's parents babysat while the sibs went out for dinner.

On Wednesday, we all split up for the day: Margaret/Damon headed to Cannes (sans Owen), Graham/Amy/Max/Lily headed out for a side trip,  and we headed out to Carcassone ourselves.  It was a nice day exploring the expansive and well preserved fortress, taking a tour of the castle and walking around the grounds and walls of the fort.  We returned to the villa to a steak dinner cooked by Keith's dad.

On the Thursday, it was just us, along with Jean/Dick and Owen.  Keith carried Owen in the backpack all day as we followed the river Aude through the gorge and explored some of the small towns.  We stopped in Limoux, had a fantastic lunch in Quillan on the banks of the river, and went on to a beautiful castle called Puylaurans which we walked up.  We hosted dinner that night, with a meal of cheese ravioli and wine.

During the next two days, we went for a few hikes in the nearby valleys, toured a couple of old castles and forts and wandered around some of the cute towns along the way.

We left the family on the Sunday morning to head to Paris.  We checked in to the hotel and had time to walk around a bit, and with remarkable coincidence, we saw that the Tour de France was wrapping up at the Arc de Triomphe that day.  We watched for an hour or so and then continued our walk.  When back at the hotel we asked the concierge for a restaurant recommendation.  He asked "traditional or trendy?" - and as Keith motioned to his Duke shorts and torn t-shirt he responded "trendy, of course!". 

On Monday, we walked around the city, seeing many of the sites including the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Seine, and the Louvre.  Later that day, we jumped on the plane and headed home, back to Raleigh and to work. 

Restaurants:

La Barbacane - A Michelin star ranked restaurant where we went for Jean and Dick's 40th anniversary dinner.

Chateau de Cavanac - This is a vineyard/hotel/restaurant we went to for "sibling night".  We ate outside and had a huge five course dinner with paired wine. 

La Fargo - A great restaurant with an open air terrace - food and wine was delicious.


For more photos of this trip: