Now I must explain, we are travelling by rental vehicle for this leg of the trip. We initially figured this would give us flexibility and also be a nice way to explore France while making our way down to the south.
So the morning before leaving Paris turned into a nightmare! Not only did we have to go and buy our Eurail Global Pass, we also had to check out, and pick up our rental all before 11am.
Now for those who are planning to travel to Europe, it might be best to buy your train pass here in Europe. The reason for that is the web seems to have too much information and can be misleading. It will tell you on one page you must buy your pass before you leave for Europe, and another page, you could print the pass online. Well, when we arrived at the train station, the lady there was extremely helpful and informed us that she constantly deals with pass holders from abroad showing up to the station only to be turned away because they failed to realize that a reservation is required on the train to travel anywhere!
Long story short, we had her book all our train tickets for the next month with reserved seats, and this saved up $400 from what it would have been on the website!
Our trains are booked from Nice - Cinque Terre - Zurich - Brussels - Amsterdam - Berlin - Copenhagen.
After buying the train tickets, we proceeded to check out, then picked up our rental vehicle from the airport and started the drive. The vehicle we got was the Peugeot 306, not a heck of a lot of power, but it was relatively cheap to rent. There of course was some drama in setting the car, as the rep tried to upsell a GPS at 75 Euros a day, but turns out, when we got to the car, a navigation system came with the car... sneaky!
The drive was long, and tense. What made it worse was the toll booths along the highway. I have never been through something so complicated! Or was it just me?? We were stuck at every booth, could not get pass. Always had to press the assistance button which in hind sight saved us maybe 20-30 Euros as people just let us through since we were holding up the traffic.. =)
Our drive ended in a town called Brive la Gaillarde. Quiet town but with very delicious French cuisine! I had the Escargot and a poisson dish, c'est tres bien!
The reason for this trip to the Dordogne region was because Matt and I had seen a PBS special on the region with Rick Steves.
We signed up for the 18km canoe trip which starts upstream and ended in a town called Souillac.
The canoe trip was amazing!
The river was very calm for most parts and the banks were lined with hanging cliffs which at the base had caves carved out by the river long ago! Matt was insistent on taking the back of the canoe cause he had taken courses on how to steer, only for me to find out later it was because he could kick back while I paddled the 18km downstream!
If you are thinking of doing this trip be sure to prepare some food and beverages so you can have along the way. There are places to stop and admire the view. We found a pile of rocks sitting in the middle where a small stream feeds into the Dordogne River. The picture below is a 360 view of the valley.
After sitting back in the middle of the river, we proceeded to explore this cave. The cave itself was carved out in a perfectly round shape, with a stream coming out of it. The water was extremely cold as I had to jump out of the canoe to drag it into the cave. The picture below is of me inside the cave with a 360 view (love this iPad app!).
This was then followed by a lot of paddling and laying back to work on a tan. Eventually we floated past a few bridges, a couple of mansions on top of the hills, and a herd of cows drinking water along the banks.
This was truly a great escape from the busy city.
The night ended with us heading into an old medieval town called Sarlat. This place was amazing. You feel like you're at Disneyland, as everything seems very surreal and fairy tale like. But if you want to visit this place, maybe during the day would be best. The drive up to the town is very windy and can be quite difficult to navigate in the dark! The drive home, was stressful, to say the least.
Now off to Nice through Cannes.
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