Final blog Until Iowa!

Hi everyone! This is my last post before we leave. I have a lot to wrap up!

First of all we spent two days at Carcassonne, a Medieval walled city near Toulouse. It is incredible. It has been completely rebuilt and looks just like it did hundreds of years ago. We went for a walk in the city first thing in the morning, This is what it looks like when you walk up to the outer walls. This is a gate leading into the inner walls.

This is my brother and me standing between the walls of the city.

 We went to the castle museum and climbed up on the ramparts. We had a huge view of the city. This is what it looked like looking down the castle walls.

 This is looking at one of the towers on the outer wall.

 This is looking over the city towards the cathedral. Parts of the Cathedral date back to the 9^th century.

 This is looking into the middle of the castle. The wooden part at the top of the wall are sections where the soldiers stood to protect the city. The city became so well built, enemies didn’t even bother to attack, they just went someplace else.

This is another picture towards the Cathedral.

 These are the big windows inside the Cathedral.

After Carcassonne we went to Albi to look at the Cathedral there. This is what surrounds the door of the Cathedral. It was added on after the Cathedral was built—the Cathedral is Romanesque and the door opening is Gothic.

This is the outside of the Cathedral. It is HUGE!!!!

This is one of the carvings around the door.

 This is the ceiling of the Cathedral. The whole place was amazing!

It was all painted inside.

 This is the organ.

Afterwards we went and looked at the city gardens before we had lunch.

This is a picture of the town from the top of the garden walls.

This is my last picture—my family getting ready for dinner. My aunt and uncle live in a huge 17^th century house. The kitchen is really big with a huge fireplace at the end.

Ok, that’s it for my blog. I hope you enjoyed what I had to share. It was the most amazing trip. I had a great time and I’m really happy that I was able to share it with you. We get on a plane for Iowa tomorrow. I’ll see you all on Monday!!!

Back to France through Luanco, Bilbao, and the Ocean

HI! I’m Finally back!

Ok, so I’m going to wrap up the last few days. It’s been so amazing and we have been busy doing so many things—mostly driving!

We started by leaving Santiago de Compostella and driving to the coast of Spain to a large town called A Coruña. We went to a part overlooking the sea. The water was a beautiful deep blue and we sat on the cliffs overlooking the sea. This is what it looked like!

There was also the oldest lighthouse in the world!! (It’s on the inside of the building.) The lighthouse is called “Hercules.”

Here is the sea again!

We then got into our car and drove to a small town called Luanca. This is our hotel.

It was in a little bay with views of rocky shores in both directions along the coast.

We went for a walk on the beach before we had dinner. It was amazing.

This is a view of a little church that was in Luanca. It was really cool that it was right on the ocean. It had the beach on one side and a little fishing harbor on the other.

When we went to dinner we found a restaurant that had a big palm tree growing through the roof! It was really cool!

Today we walked around Luanco a little bit before we left the town. These are some of the boats that are in the little fishing harbor. The colors are really bright!

 Here is the church again.

 And more boats.

 This is the inside of the church. It was very pretty.

This is the ceiling. They put plaster over the stone and painted it to look this way.

Then we went to the beach! It was lots of fun to be able to take some time off and play in the waves, even though it was a bit cold.

There were steep cliffs on both sides of the beach and a river that drained into the ocean.

I even was able to build a sand castle! (With a bit of help!)

My brother Anton and I decided to go for a swim. It was really, really cold but we did it anyway! I couldn’t go to the ocean and NOT swim!

Today we are in Bilbao. This is what the city looked like outside our hotel window. The city (it’s really big!) is in the hilly northern part of Spain, in the Basque region.

The main reason we went to Bilbao was to see the Guggenheim Art Museum. This is a boat museum we passed on our way to the Guggenheim.

 This is what the Guggenheim Art Museum looks like from the outside. It was designed by the same person who designed the Disney Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles. (They show that building in the movie “Get Smart.”)

 This is one of the art pieces outside of the museum.

 This is me being goofy!

 The whole museum was covered in panels of stainless steel. This is what the look like up close.

After we saw the museum we got in the car and drove to Foix, France. It was a VERY long drive.

Finally, no more driving days! After breakfast we went into Foix and looked around.

Surprise! There is a castle! This is the castle of Henry IV of France.

It was up on a bump of rock right in the middle of town. The views were amazing! This is looking towards the south into Andorra.

 Here is a picture of one of the three towers of the castle.

 After we saw the castle in Foix we drove (just a short time) into the mountains. This is what it looked like as we were driving.

We stopped to climb up to a castle called Montsegur. Yes, it’s WAY up on top of a mountain! And that IS the path that we have to climb!

Montsegur was the last castle stronghold of a religious group called the Cathars. They were a group of Christians that believed in both good and evil and in living a simple life. Even if they were rich, they gave everything away.  Because their ideas were different than what the Pope wanted they were all hunted and killed. The last remaining Cathar people were hiding in this castle but were finally defeated and put to death at the base of the hill.

This is how high we were when we got to the top. It was really scary sometimes!

This is what the inside of the castle looks like today. It’s amazing that at one point over 500 people lived in and around the castle.

Another amazing view!

This is a view down onto the modern village of Montsegur. It is really small and very beautiful.

Here is another picture of Montsegur from the top. Even though it was beautiful, it was also a bit eerie. There is a lot of history and sadness here. I was happy to climb back down.

Then we went down to the town of Monsegur. Here I am trying to pull a sword out of a stone!

 We hopped back in our cars to head to Carcassonne and our next hotel. Along the way we passed a large natural spring coming out of the bottom of a mountain. The water was very clear and very cold! My Dad even drank some! He said it tasted delicious!!!