Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.

Mark Jenkins

I’m so glad everyone is liking my France adventures so far! This is, sadly, my last installment from the trip, but I have a few more posts that are going to be super useful for you in the future. Come back next week for a glimpse of my flight upgrade experience. I’m getting ahead of myself, back to France!

If you want to catch up on my previous adventures, excursions, and all of the amazing things we saw/did check out part 1 here and part 2 here. So now, it’s time to recount the last part of my trip! Such a bittersweet moment for me. We really didn’t want this to end!

Day 7 AM: Revisiting Favorites, Monpazier, and La Roque-Gageac

We had an interesting start to the morning. We wanted to get breakfast at our favorite lunch spot in town since we saw the omelets and knew we were in for a treat. We walked the 40 minutes to town with the dogs, got seated, and grabbed a coffee. Then, we waited. We waited some more. I looked up how to say things in French that I had forgotten about ordering. After asking, we were told the restaurant didn’t serve food until 12. So, we had sat there for 30 minutes, super hungry, watching them prep a ton of food, and we couldn’t eat any of it. It might sound like I’m complaining, but I’m laughing as I type this because it just makes me giggle. C’est la vie.

We pivoted and grabbed a pastry from the boulangerie (that’s bakery in French) then met up with my family again because… we had exciting plans! Our first stop of the day was in one of the most adorable Medieval villages called Monpazier. The second you walked in it just felt so old, but in an adorable and “explore me!” kind of way. We stopped for a quick drink and a mini dessert before walking around. The town was tiny, but it had so much personality. We could’ve walked around there for so long!

Next stop: La Roque-Gageac. The first thing you see when you come to the village was a gigantic cliff face with a Medieval village built into it overlooking the river. By the time we got there all of us were hungry so we stopped for a sandwich at a local shop and made our way up the mountain to find a shady spot to eat. There weren’t many options but we found an old tower and got to eat lunch with a view of the river and walnut farms. I really don’t know how we got so lucky, but this trip was filled with moments like those that made something ordinary like eating a sandwich into something we talk about for weeks after it happened.

After lunch, we set off to explore more of the town and soak up the amazing views. Once we got near the top, we had the option of climbing to where the Medieval fort used to be and go inside one of the caves in the cliff. If you’ve read any of my previous posts about my trips, you know I was up those 100+ steps in a heartbeat. On the way up we passed pleasant signs like “this is where the stake pit used to be where they threw invaders to get impaled”. I’m a history nerd, so I actually really enjoyed learning about all of the things. It’s so easy to walk by a hole in the ground and not realize it used to be something like that. It’s fun to use your imagination and try to picture what you see today like it would’ve been in the past.

If you’re looking for a view that will make you never want to leave the cave you’re standing in, this is the place for you. You can see a picture of this place if you look in the dictionary under the word “picturesque”. For real though, I can’t recommend this town enough. Once we made our way back down we made our way back to the car and set off again! Our day was just getting started.

Day 7 PM: Chateau Milandes and a Crepe Dinner in Eymet

Will and I had never visited a chateau before and we got our opportunity as we arrived at Chateau Milandes. This gorgeous estate was the former home of famed actress/performer Josephine Baker who made history as she became many firsts in the entertainment industry for African American women and women in general.

We toured the gardens first and then went inside to start the self-guided audio tour. We explored and learned about nearly every square inch of the chateau from its origins several centuries ago to its most recent past as Josephine Baker’s home before becoming a museum. Costumes (my favorite displays), custom-designed rooms, marketing materials, old videos, historical items, and photographs adorned every surface. I loved being able to see her actual costumes and the rooms she had designed to suit her style. Then you’d walk down a hallway straight out of the 1600s and be transported back in time. It was such a neat place to walk around and learn about!

After spending a few hours there, we drove back with just enough time to get ready for our last dinner in (you guessed it) another insanely charming small Medieval town. We sat down to eat with a view overlooking the main square. It was decorated with lines of small flowers made out of what looked like paper but was probably something more durable. Live music was playing around the corner. It was just perfect.

Now, we couldn’t leave France without eating crepes. I’ve had many crepes before but it was nothing compared to this. It was the traditional southern France style crepe and it was massive and massively delicious. I got the ham, mozzarella, and pesto crepe and it was better than I ever imagined. It being our last night, we had to also have dessert. Will got the largest banana split I’ve ever seen and I got mint chocolate chip ice cream sundae which had locally-made ice cream. I could’ve eaten that forever. It was gone pretty quickly.

As we made our way back to the car to head home, we stopped and listened to the live music for bit. I could totally see us hanging out in that town all the time if we lived there. That area of France is my ideal vibe. It is full of history, adventure, and feels like a close-knit community. I’m so grateful I got to visit and even more grateful to see family and experience everything with them. This was one hell of a special trip.

Day 8: 30 Hours of Travel

Now for the almost-never-glamorous part of travel. I’m going to take a deep dive into how we traveled in a future post, so I won’t go into crazy detail here. But…this was a DAY. Here’s how it went…

• Woke up at 6am (no biggie. We’re used to it).
• 2-hour car drive to Bordeaux airport
• Got lost in the airport and couldn’t find security. Finally, found it and felt dumb
• First flight is delayed an hour
• Arrive in Paris airport to go through immigration. Walk to gate and board directly with the perfect amount of time to not be late. Phew!
• Flight gets delayed.
• 10-hour flight to Atlanta
• Get food and find gate
• Flight is delayed.
• Arrive in Norfolk and walk to car. Continue walking because you forgot where you parked. Find car and try not to be grumpy
• Drive 15 minutes to pick up dogs. Realize you drove to the OTHER location in the opposite direction where you thought the dogs were going to be. Drive to the other location. Pick up confused and sleepy dogs.
• Drive 6 hours home. Arrive after dawn.
• Fall into bed.

All in all, it was 30 hours of straight travel. Did it suck? Yeah. Was it worth it? Oh yeah.