We woke feeling rested and began our exploration of the walled Citadel of city of Carcassone. This medieval Citadel sits on a high plane above the city and includes a cathedral and is now a great tourist site. We stayed at the Cite hotels Hotel Fonjon, a very nice middle range property. We visited the various shops, stopped in the Cathedral, and Glenda and Jeff hiked the citadel walls overlooking the town.
Later in the afternoon, it started to rain, and we took refuge in a pub and enjoyed a glass of wine. We dined in a small restaurant and sampled some local dishes. Carcassone is reputed to be the birthplace of Cassloulet, so Glenda and Jeff both tried it. Thicker and hotter than expected, but tasty. Glenda is motivated to try her own recipe again when she returns home.
The next day, it continued to rain but we gamely explored and finished repacking our bags. We borrowed an umbrellas from the concierge at the hotel and found a small restaurant around the corner from the hotel. Deb tried the onion soup- not so great. Mark sampled the cassoulet and a cheese plate for dessert. We stumbled home in the rain and prepared for the departure the next day. The hotel provided a transport with our luggage back to the parking lot, and we headed out, southward and west ward through the Pyrenees mountains to the small country of Andorra.
Again, Glenda handled the driving duties and we felt linke we were in the Rockies. As we crossed into Andorra, we passed a number of ski resorts and chalets that reminded us all of Vail. Andorra is a landlocked country, not a member of the EU, but still utilizing the currency. The language is Catalan, a variation and dialect of Spanish. The country is a duty free tax haven and so does a trade through out France and Spain. The capital of Velhora is the main center and the shopping streets were loaded with high end items such as jewelry stores and watch stores. We found a small restaurant for an early dinner, which included a cold plate of Iberian sausage and ham slices, a Tartifillette de Reblochon ( a baked cheese dish with mushroom slices buried in it,) and a roast chicken with french fries. A large house salad was also enjoyed.
Mark went back to the room to rest while the others struck out for some shopping. Although we originally planned on two nights in Andorra, this had pretty well exhausted our tour, so we cancelled the second night and packed our bags.
The next morning, we retrieved our vehicle from the parking garage, and headed back along the coast after getting out of the Pyrenees mountains. We drove to Beziers, a port city along the Mediterranean coast. Beziers is one of the oldest cities in France, founded in 575 BCE. It has been continuously occupied ever since. The city was a stronghold of Catharism, which the Catholic Church condemned as heretical in 1209, The Crusaders marched on the city. Within days, they attacked and massacred all 20,000 inhabitants. Despite the massacre, the city was repopulated. the restoration of the city continued into the 15th century.
The next day we left for Marseilles for our final night. We traveled to the airport to turn in our rental car and stumbled into the middle of a taxi drivers strike. Glenda somehow managed to steer around the barricades, not knowing what was happening. We dropped the return, much to the surprise of the rental car staff, and then found there was no way to take a taxi back to our hotel for the evening. Deb managed to find an Uber driver who was willing to pick us up, but only after we had walked along the highway, dragging our luggage to get out past the taxi barricades back to the roundabout out side the airport. Quite an adventure.
We walked around Marseilles, looking at the buildings and the trompe d’oile paintings along some of the structures. We walked from our hotel by the bay to our restaurant to enjoy our last french meal. We dined on hake, scallops, a croque monsieur sandwich with wine and some spritzer cocktails.
The next morning we sat by the thoroughfare awaiting our transfer to the airport, not sure whether we would be allowed to reach the airport. The strike, though technically still in place, seemed to have died down and there was no blockade. Since taxis mostly were for arrivals, there was no problems at the departure building. We checked our luggage in, hoping it would make it to Omaha, and boarded our flight for Madrid. We landed with no problems, and transferred to the terminal for our American Airlines flight home. We found a place to eat, enjoyed a bottle of wine, some sandwiches and a plate of sausages and salami. Mark, still suffering from his back problems since he was unable to take his pain medications due to the antibiotics he was taking, ordered a wheelchair for transport in O’Hare.
Landing in Chicago, we negotiated customs, rechecked our bags, and headed to our next gate. The wheelchair girl was young and energetic. She told us she logged about 24,000 steps per day in the airport. Deb, struggling to keep up, went her own way, as the wheelchair driver took the longer route with elevators instead of escalators. We made it through TSA security again and found our gate for the final flight home. Originally scheduled for an 8:55 PM departure, it turned out there were no pilots and so we waited until nearly 10:00 PM for a pilot to appear. We finally arrived in Omaha a little after 11:00 PM.
Abigail was waiting for us, loaded all our luggage into the RAV 4, and home we went. Glenda and Jeff transferred into their car, parked at our house, and they headed to Lincoln as Deb and Mark went into to see Poppy the cat and fall into bed. Along travel day that finally ended around 1:00 AM.
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