And we are off! We left Basque country and headed for Rocamadour (about 4 hours away), stopping in Pau to attend church and look at the lovely chateau there. Pau is an interesting historical city with the most charming old bits perched on the top of a hill. It is the capital of Pyrénées-Atlantiques and Béarn and was where King Henry IV the prince of France and Navarre was born. I was very excited to learn about Navarre because I once was in a play by Shakespeare called Loves Labors Lost and one of the main characters rules over Navarre, so that was just fun to know that it was a real place...yep!
The chateau was sooo pretty! I think that the French chateaux may be prettier than the British stately homes...or at least the ones I've seen are quite blocky compared to the more magical French ones (I know there is for sure an official architectural word for this...but I don't know it).
I also stumbled across one of those cool public toilets that automatically disinfect themselves, and so I tried it--just to say I did.
It was pretty exciting, but I would be hesitant to use one in a crowded place because on the outside there's a button that if you push it it starts to sanitize the loo...and I could definitely see some cheeky prankster pushing the button whilst some poor unsuspecting tourist was inside.
We drove past so many beautiful places that I didn't catch the names of:
But I did recognize Lourdes from a movie I had watched (also called Lourdes). Lourdes is a pilgrimage site for those who want to be healed.
We also drove by Toulouse and a whole bunch of other places...which I didn't get any pictures of.
We stopped in Albi for the night and had enough time to explore a bit! The group I went around with went to the magnificent cathedral:
and of course chatted up the local lads:
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