Saturday, May 12, 2012
Breakfast was interesting this
morning at the Monastery; self service and instead of coffee cups we had the
traditional bowls; they were used both for our coffee/chocolate and
cereal. Good food but definitely not the
normal café style. But…we did really
enjoy the American coffee…it’s much weaker than the European version and we
also could have as much as we wanted! We
also had to strip our beds and put the linens in a basket in the hall!
Soon we were off on the road
toward Albi; the home of Henri Toulouse-Letrec.
Located north of Carcassonne; it took us less than two hours to drive
here. We found our hotel…this is market
day and the streets are packed. The
boys dropped us off at the hotel so we could ask about parking while they
circled the streets. When the wonderful
hotel owner, Patrick, asked us where our car was parked…we said “it is driving
around waiting for us to get information on where to park”….he looked at us with
a questioning look and so we repeated our statement. He shrugged his shoulders as only the French
can do and then we added … our husbands are driving the car! Voila….. we don’t have a car that
automatically drives itself! He though
it was just the two of us and we had a very strange automobile that could drive
itself! Ah…he laughed and said, “you
have two rooms!” A little bit of English is as dangerous as a
little bit of French! Soon he was
finding us a spot across from the hotel with his friend and then gave us our
rooms early. We need to move the car to
the parking lot later today after the Market is gone! Since its Saturday/Sunday we won’t have to
pay for parking!
Off we went towards the Cathedral
and the Toulouse-Letrec Musee. We
rounded a corner and a monster of a building loamed over us! We’d read in the tour book that this church
was built at the end of the Cathar Wars by the Catholic Church to prove that
they were so strong that the Cathar’s didn’t stand a chance of winning any
future battles. I’ve never seen such a
huge brick church…yes…most of the buildings in Albi are made of brick. The Cathedral was originally built in the 13th
century as part of a fort as well as a church.
You’ll find a strange photo in
the slideshow today…it’s a manhole cover in the city of Albi and four sets of
feet touching the circle….as Terry said, “it was a feat to take this photo”! Seriously, we took it for my twin sister as
her favorite thing on our trip to Europe in 2009 was to find a manhole cover
with the city name and take a photo with our feet…so this is for you Mary!
Our main site to see in this town
is the Toulouse-Letrec Musee. Albi was
his hometown and there are over 1,000 of his paintings exhibited in this
Musee. It was closed from noon to 2 pm
so we found a café with a view of the Cathedral and Musee and enjoyed a two
hour lunch under the shade of the awning.
The boys had Croque Madam and I had a Croque Monsieur…mine didn’t have
the egg on top! The sky has been
overcast all day and although it was humid; it was cooler than yesterday when
the temperatures hovered above 85 degrees.
At 2:00 pm we headed for the
Musee and enjoyed … without being able to take photos….nearly two hours in the
Musee and then back to the Cathedral to look for the 2 Euro coins that are
imprinted with the varies sites throughout France; Terry is collecting
them. We could not find the machine and
when Jim asked the clerk in the gift shop in the Cathedral where the machine
was located he said, “I am the machine….the real machine makes too much noise”…and
so we found his Albi Cathedrale coin.
Heading back towards the hotel we
got royally lost and had to stop several times to ask for directions but we
finally found the hotel. The boys moved
the car into a parking lot and then we had two hours of down time. The wifi here is fantastic and I did
yesterday’s blog. Then it was off to
dinner. The weather is very threatening
so we chose a place around the corner that the hotel recommended by the name of
Le Nossy Bee. We had to wait until 7:30
but it was worth the wait…actually they let us come in early and have a drink
while we waited. We each ordered a
different plat…usually at least two of us are the same…and everyone enjoyed
their meal; and we were not too full since we’d passed on the Starter and the
Dessert!
Walked back to the old cite
center since there was no rain and thought we’d see lights on the Cathedral…it
was nearly 9 pm but as we head north it is staying light later and later so we
only got the setting sun rays on the towers.
Everything was closed so no ice cream shops for dessert.
Tomorrow we head for Sarlat where
we’ll stay for two nights. Au Revoir….
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