Kris Visits

About 2 weeks ago (yeah, I know...I'm playing catch-up), our friend Kris came through town on his inaugural European vacation. Made sense since our village is along the Paris-Stockholm-Milan-St. Girons-Rome path (have euro-rail pass....will sleep in train!). We had a great 3 days packed with activities such as the school party (see previous post), good food, and visits.
The weather was not great, but we managed to fit in a few short hikes to appreciate the spectacular fall colors. Good timing...those bright red and yellow leaves only last a few weeks!

the tour de france comes up this valley fairly often... (la Core)

We also did our best to give Kris a tour of good french food -- cassoulet, snails, lamb, magret de canard, and of course good wine and cheese. I think he liked it...and left a dozen pounds heavier! (at least we did).

No French visit is complete without a peek at a medieval castle...so on his last day here, we visited 2 and a cave with paintings for good measure.

We passed by the castle at Foix and explored the castle at Carcassone. To know what Carcassone looks like, just close your eyes...picture the perfect medieval castle and that's it. Well...maybe add a carousel out front...

The cave was the Grotte de Niaux - which has graffiti from 1642 and fantastic paintings that are 15,000 years old of bison, horses, and ibex. This was Adrien's second visit (the first was when he was 1.5 years old) and Aliena's first (I know...we are slackers on her cultural education - we really should have done it before she turned 2 months...).

Adrien was sure that we would see bears and deer in the cave along with the paintings - and he told me all about how these animals would scratch him. Here is the video....although to fully understand you will have to decode his french-english mix. He does mime a deer scratching him though...!

During the visit, Adrien took a liking to Kris, but he could not manage to remember his name! For the first 2 days or so, Adrien called Kris "that guy". He then must have over-heard us talking about Bruce (memory-lane) at which point Kris became "Bruce"...which must somehow be easier to remember than Kris. We corrected him, of course: "That's not Bruce, that's Kris"...at which point Kris became "not-Bruce" for the rest of the trip!

Hope our little bit of Ariege was a nice enough place to come back for another visit Not-Bruce!