Bill n Pat Europe 2026

  Monday, April 27: Chateau de Castenau Bretanoux After a bit of a lazy lie-in at the peaceful little riverside campsite in the previous post, we drove 20 minutes through lovely farmland, and up the the Chateau de Castenau Bretanoux. it is a smallish Chateau, but still very dramatic with well described development over the centuries from 12th to 20th. Having been developed through the various iterations of noble political families, it ended up in the hands of a tenor from the Opera Comedie of Paris, who restored it and used it as his country retreat arould the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. We explored mostly around the outside, but also the inner chambers for a couple of hours before setting off again. The obligatory selfie! The drive began through beautiful Dordogne valley countryside and villages before we caught the A20 motorway for a couple hours of making distance. We pulled off near Limoges, and onto smaller roads again, and spotted the "medieval town" of Bourganeuf ...

Saturday, April 25: Albi and Cordes-sur-Ceil  One "problem" we expected with having travelled so much in France is finding a road less taken. So we have chosen a route toward Paris a little east of our route south, but with no well known sites along the way, at least not well known to us. The first town along the way was Albi... we thought, OK, maybe something to see there. Well, indeed there was! In addition to the largest brick cathedral in the world, a town with many narrow medieval streets, vibrant markets and the river Tarn with old bridges, mills and locks. We considered staying the night, but couldn't find a spot in the camper parking, so moved on to find a spot in maybe a peaceful boring little village. One likely suspect was on the map, Cordes sur Ciel, but boring it is not! As we approached, we saw an ancient looking hill town, and indeed it is "sur Ciel" means above the ceiling, or above the clouds. We found a nice little camping park below the town, ...