Quinn playing on the beach in Collioure.
We skipped out on the art history tour in favor of lounging on the beach. That night, we bought tons of baguettes, cheese, grapes, dark chocolate, and Sangria and ate to our hearts content.
Sam and our feast.
The next day was an early morning. We took a bus to Les Grands Canalettes, the largest grotto in France and third largest in the world. Turns out, even if you're in the South of France, it's 30 degrees inside a grotto. That was not fun with the clothes I packed. Anyways, the man who actually discovered the caves (the spelunker) gave us a guided tour of the whole place.
Us being bear-like.
Rocks and stuff.
Me with a stalagmite / stalachtite.
More rocks.
The tour ended in 'the Cathedral,' a huge open area full of beautiful crystals, stalagmites, rocks, etc., and there was a music and light show. A little too long for my freezing self, but beautiful nonetheless. The tour ended with a huge feast prepared by the guide's family. A pig roast, as a matter of fact. It started with fresh corn, tomatoes, onions, and bread. Then, there were 3 pork courses: 1 was an odd lumpy black sausage served with aoili (spelling?) mayonaise; 2 was like a long hot dog; 3 was just a pork steak kind of thing. Then our guide pulled out the pouru.
Me with the pouru.
It's meant to be used with wine, like he did, but for API purposes it was water. He could actually pour it from his forehead to his mouth! Needless to say, we all loved this man. He then gave us 4 rounds of dessert, and we were on our merry way.
Us jumping at les Grands Canelettes.
Kelly, Sam, Me, Quinn, Marissa.
That night we just went sat on the beach, and headed to bed early in preparation for another early day.
Fun on the beach.
The next day we travelled to Carcasson, one of the oldest medieval towns in France. There, we opted out of the tour (again) and had a tour of our own.
Quinn in Carcasson.
We had a long sit down meal where we tried the Catalonian specialty, cassoule. It's a white bean, goose, and sausage stew. SO GOOD!
Cassoule.
Right after Carcasson, we got back on the bus, drove an hour to the train station, took a 6 hour train, and arrived back in Paris. Fabulous weekend!
