April 21, 2010 - Toulouse at last

Day 8 — April 21, 2010 (Wednesday)

Up at 3:45 AM to get ready to check out and meet our taxi at 5:00 AM. My feet are so blistered that Ed arranged a cab instead of taking the Metro to the train station. I deeply appreciate it! The cab was a Prius and this was our first ride in one. We loved it and were amazed at how large it was. [Later: We liked it so well that when we got home, we traded our Camry for a Prius and have had it for years now. We love it.]

Arrived at Gare Montparnasse and had to ask where to find our train. A young woman answered us and then kept a careful eye on us to be sure we understood her French. Found our track and we waited, then boarded the TGV to Bordeaux and Toulouse. It’s smooth, quiet, comfortable . . . and very fast.

We arrived in Toulouse, took the bus to the airport, thus seeing some of Toulouse, and picked up our Peugeot 207 to start the real vacation. Then the fun began . . . we couldn’t find the Le Clerc Hypermarché gas station and our new GPS was absolutely no help. It’s refusing to talk and keeps going in strange ways. Without the sound, we’re not sure where to turn. I checked the language setting and don’t know why it won’t talk . . . GPS laryngitis?!

We finally got gas and then took far too long to escape Toulouse. Once on the AutoRoute, we were fine and zipped along. At exit 57 all zipping stopped as we plodded behind many slow camper vans (caravans) on narrow winding roads. Once we got to the D6/D46, the campers disappeared and Cenac-et-St.-Julien soon appeared. All the houses in this area are made of golden stone; they’re beautiful. Many have square towers.

We tried the directions to our gite and had no luck so, knowing the owner was a local butcher, we stopped in the butcher shop for directions. A very affable butcher welcomed us to town and gave us directions to the house. The directions (in French) included going up a street until we passed the “vache” and it was the next driveway. Fortunately we knew a vache was a cow so drove up the road as directed until we passed a field of cows, turned right and found our gite.

We were welcomed by Pierrette (owner) and Sylvia (daughter-in-law) Guinot and shown the utterly beautiful gite. We talked for a while and Sylvia kept trying to put our description of the helpful butcher to her husband and it just didn’t make sense to her. When he came home, she asked him and discovered we had gone to the “other” butcher in town. Oops! At least he cheerfully gave us correct directions.

I unpacked while Ed visited Shopi for breakfast and supper and a few supplies. We have only two electric outlets useable for charging our electronics. That could be a challenge.

We ate, chatted and are going to bed very early. We have our painting supplies out and plan a very leisurely day tomorrow. The bed looks great!