France- Day 10: A Fantasy Village!

Today was a good day, I must say! I got up of my own accord and prepared for going to the market. Once we got to town My grandmother gave me ten euros to spend, as well as buying me a  pain au chocolat (Bread with chocolate, which is like a croissantesque pastry with chocolate in the middle) from a famous bakery. It had been closed until today, because the baker had been off judging competitions. It was very delicious. Soon after that I parted from the group and went to shop on my own. I dipped into a few stores, bought some strawberries from the market, and found a lovely flowered dress for only five euros (which I also bought!). Then I met up with my family at our usual cafe, drank une chocolat chau (Hot chocolate, also excuse the fact that I am probably misspelling these french words!) and read A Game of Thrones until we were ready to leave. When we got home I took a quick nap (after sending a quick message to my future college roommate!) and then got up at about two to prepare for the next adventure.

My mom, my aunt and I piled into the car to head to a lovely city called St Cirq-Lapopie.  It has been voted the most beautiful city in France for three years in a row, and it is no wonder why (and that is what all the pictures littering this blog post are of!)

 First though, I will write about the drive there! It was amazing! The road itself may have scared me, but the view was fantastic. There was the ever present river and hills (or hilltains XD) but they were also studded with fantastic white cliffs. It was truly beautiful.

And the city was adorable, and made me feel like I was in a fairy tale (despite the fact that the shops were all tourist traps. There were some cute things though and I bought a lovely scarf with owls on it!). It is hard to explain, but that is why I took so many pictures! Also, the city is really cool, because it is built right into the hillside, so it is all sloped, and one edge just drops off into a cliff!

We walked around the upper town, and then I wanted to go down to the lower part of town. My mom and aunt were sure that nothing was down there, so they went and had a beer at a cafe while I bounced off on my own adventures, And boy, were they wrong. The were still stores down in that part, but that is not what I thought was important about the city, the beauty of it was what was important! I soon discovered that the lower half of the city was not only less traveled than the upper half, but also much more beautiful! There were all sorts of Garden paths and cool buildings. By the time I returned to my family I was hot, sweaty and aching for something to drink. Of course, when I told them of my discoveries they eagerly wanted to go check them out (My aunt mostly jumping on the words 'pottery store'). Thus, poor, tired, aching, thirsty Caitlin was led on another bout of adventures. Of course, by the time we had gotten to the pottery shop I felt on the verge of passing out from dehydration (it was a hot day, and all I had to drink was a small cup of hot chocolate.) So my mom bought me something to drink and it helped me feel a lot better! We kept adventuring and even found a few more less traveled garden paths (one branching out onto another cliff face). There was a path down the cliff and through some nature that eventually curved back into town that I would have liked to go on, but we were all tired and it would have been a long trek. Thus we piled back into the car and headed for home (only stopping to get me a baguette!).

 I made a quick dessert for my family (at the request of my grandpa) and then we had dinner. It was mussels and fries- so I ate my baguette and fries. I went upstairs before the dessert, because I was tired of listening to my grandfather complain about the fact that I on't like mussels (Apparently If you don't like mussels you can never be a true french person. It is a good thing I don't intend to be a true french woman, and its not like he likes all french meals either. I am sick of them trying to make me behave like a french person! I'm not french! I'm just visiting! Seriously -.-) I didn't want the dessert anyway, they requested that I make it with apricots, and I don't like apricots.

Anyways, I went upstairs and was able to talk to Luke on Skype for awhile and we even plsyed a game together for a bit :) It was nice.

And here I am, writing this post!  Anyways, I am absolutely exhausted, so I am going to go to bed!
But here are some pictures before I go!