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"Enchanting
Southwestern
France"
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Bonjour ...
Come Join
Us! |
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RUTH MASTRON |
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OCTOBER
8TH
Arrive in France at CDG airport outside of Paris and catch your connecting flight to Pau, where you will be welcomed by our English-speaking tour guide and transfer to your Lourdes, one of the world’s great pilgrimage sites.
You will enjoy a tour in the footsteps of St Bernadette and visit her childhood home in Bartrès as well as her home in the city of Lourdes. The Pastoral Theme for 2007 is “Reconciliation”, taken from St. Paul's second letter to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 5:20):
"Be Reconciled with God".
Join pilgrims from around the world at the procession of the Blessed Sacrament (5 pm) and in the evening in the Candlelight Marian Procession, which has taken place every evening at 9 pm since 1872. You can buy containers in town or bring your own to fill with water from the miraculous spring and take home with you.
Dinner and overnight at your hotel in Lourdes.
http://www.bartres.com
http://www.lourdes-france.com
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Hotel d'Espagne
Close To All Pilgrimage Sites
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OCTOBER 9TH
Breakfast at your hotel.
Today we leave for a full day excursion to Baionan (Bayonne) and a taste of Basque Culture. This old “Corsaire” city, the antique “Lapurdum” of the Romans, is proud of its 13th-century cathedral and 14th-century cloister, of its wooden “sang de boeuf” houses, its villas, its ramparts and its gardens, and its museums which glory in Botticelli, Rubens and Rembrandt.
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BAYONNE
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TRADITIONAL
BASQUE COSTUME
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Here you can also live the spirit of the Basque culture with a visit to the Euskal Museoa (Basque Museum), where you can learn about this utterly unique culture whose language is unrelated to any other on earth. Where did the Basques
come from? As they will tell you, “Before boulders were boulders and before G-d was G-d, the Basques were already Basque.”
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BASQUE
LINENS |
Lunch at typical cider house with Basque specialties and Basque folk music.
The secret of making chocolate was brought into France through Bayonne by Sephardic Jews forced out of the Iberian Peninsula by the Inquisition. Be sure to drink a luscious toast to the Jewish merchants of Bayonne at one of the city’s chocolate houses.
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MERCI
BEAUCOUP TO THE
JEWISH MERCHANTS OF BAYONNE! |
On the way back to Lourdes we stop in St Vincent de Paul near Dax, at the birthplace of St Vincent.
Dinner and overnight in Lourdes.
http://www.musee-basque.com
http://www.st-paul-les-dax.fr
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OCTOBER 10TH
Transfer from Lourdes to Auch, ancient capital of the region of Gascony, home of fine dining and warm welcomes.
Home of D’Artagnan of Three Musketeers fame, Auch offers abundant charms. Watch out for the “pousterles”—tiny lanes that climb the town’s steep hills.
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TINY
LANES TO EXPLORE! |
Enjoy a tour, then explore on your own. We will get together in the evening for a three-course dinner and overnight in Auch.
http://www.tourisme-gers.com
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Hotel
de France, Auch
In the Heart of the Old City |
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OCTOBER 11TH
In the tiny village of Saint Puy, you will discover the Château de Monluc, which houses an important wine company producing the unique “Pousse-Rapière”.
La Romieu, another lovely old town on the Compostella road with its Collegiate Church, will delight cat-lovers with its town square statues. We’ll hear the legend of Angeline, a kind-hearted orphan who saved the village in the 14th century.
In Lectoure, we will visit the "Bleu de Lectoure" workshop, where we’ll learn about the ancient process of dyeing with woad (Isatis tinctoria). Since 1994, the artisans here have revived this extraordinary blue pigment and applied it to arts, design, textile and decoration. Today they work with a farming co-operative to produce the plants, as well as a regional research laboratory and local dyers and weavers.
Gascon Dinner at the 12th century Abbaye of Flaran with folk music.
Overnight in Auch.
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OCTOBER 12TH
After breakfast jump a few centuries through time to see how Gascons lived in the Middle Ages via the tableaux vivants at the castle in Larressingle.
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LARRESSINGLE
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Then we proceed to Montréal du Gers, where we visit the Gallo-Roman villa of Séviac to see what the good life was like in the 4th and 5th centuries. The villa has over 30 splendid mosaic floors and sumptuous thermal baths, which makes this an exceptional archeological site.
Lunch on your own in Montréal. Afterwards, leave for Fourcès to visit this typical medieval “bastide” or walled town of the Gascogne region—only this one is round!
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FOURCÈS
THE ONLY ROUND BASTIDE IN THE REGION |
Dinner is at the famous Table des Cordeliers restaurant in Condom, in the exquisite ambiance of a restored chapel.
Overnight in Condom.
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LA
TABLE DES CORDELIERS RESTAURANT |
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OCTOBER 13TH
After breakfast discover Condom, a lovely Gascon town made famous by the French film “Le Bonheur est dans le pré” (“Happiness is in the Field”) and known long before as a way station on the pilgrimage road to Compostella in Spain.
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CONDOM
ON THE BANKS OF THE
RIVER BAÏSE |
ARMAGNAC
MUSEUM |
We’ll visit the Gothic cathedral Saint Pierre and its cloister, the Roman Church of Scieurac, Sainte Germaine and Lialores, the historic town centre, the Armagnac Museum—and of course, shop for souvenirs!
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CATHEDRAL
INTERIOR
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CATHEDRAL
OF ST. PIERRE |
CONDOM
CLOISTERS |
Later today, we’ll transfer to Toulouse, called “La Ville Rose” because of its brick construction—unique in the region.
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You KNOW ...
you want to be in this picture!
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OCTOBER 14TH
Morning tour in Toulouse, heart of the South-West and the fourth largest city in France with a heritage dating back to Roman times.
We’ll cover the major sights and help you decide where to spend your afternoon (Toulouse offers a wealth of museums, shops and cafés so you can be as active or as lazy as you like).
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PLACE
DU CAPITOLE
TOWN HALL AND
NATIONAL THEATRE
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MODERN
ART MUSEUM
IN A FORMER
SLAUGHTERHOUSE!
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ST.
SERNIN
11 - 12TH CENTURY |
THE
VILLE ROSE
PINK CITY |
Lunch on the beautiful floating restaurant Occitania on the Canal du Midi, an engineering marvel of the 17th century. In Toulouse, the Canal begins its 240 km voyage linking the Atlantic and the Mediterranean—a journey that otherwise required a month of travel with the risk of attacks from Spain and pirates. The only thing we’ll risk is not being able to take it all in!
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THE
OCCITANIA
MODERN &
COMFORTABLE |
WELCOME
ABOARD! |
GREAT
FOOD
GREAT VIEWS
ALL AROUND |
Afternoon at leisure to explore the city on your own.
Overnight in Toulouse
at Hotel Crown Plaza.
http://www.toulouse-tourisme.com/accueil/index_fr.php
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OCTOBER 15TH
Breakfast at your hotel.
Morning departure to Frespech for a guided visit of the goose liver museum with tasting. The museum is housed in an old barn on a working farm, and gives us the chance to learn about the amazing history of this South-Western delicacy which traces its roots to ancient Egypt.
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VILLAGE
OF FRESPECH
FORTIFICATIONS DATE FROM
13TH - 15TH CENTURY |
LA
TAULEJADA
RESTAURANT TERRACE |
Arrive in Sarlat for dinner and overnight stay.
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OCTOBER 16TH
Breakfast at your hotel.
Morning excursion to White Périgord, the land of the limestone plateaux and wide valleys and meadows traversed by the Auvézère and the Isle Rivers, and heart of truffle country.
In Sorges-en-Périgord
you can visit the Ecomuseum of Truffles. Discover the story of the mysterious and delicious fungus known as the “black diamond” of
Périgord.
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A
BASKET FULL OF
BLACK DIAMONDS |
SIMPLY
CHARMING |
On the way back to Sarlat, stop at Auriac-du-Périgord to visit the Cave of Fond de Gaume, with its magnificent cave paintings of various prehistoric animals.
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PREHISTORIC
CAVE ART - FOND DE GAUME
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PREHISTORIC
CAVE ART - FOND DE GAUME |
Afternoon tour in the lovely old town of Sarlat with its narrow streets, capital of the Black Périgord, which houses prehistoric treasures in the valleys of the Vézère and the Dordogne rivers. If you enjoyed the movie “Ever After” with Drew Barrymore, you may recognize the location of many of the movie’s scenes in
Sarlat!
Dinner and overnight in Sarlat.
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OCTOBER 17TH
We’ll make a morning stop at Roque St-Christophe, situated in a remarkable setting. From its five separate levels the cliff overlooks 900 meters of the Vézère Valley. Inhabited as early as 55,000 years ago, the site was continually improved, fortified and developed until the inhabitants were finally cleared out in the late 1500s.
And of course, there is a legend about buried treasure which has never been found!
Afterwards, we’ll drive to Sadirac for a guided visit of its extraordinary garden, where 150 varieties of old-fashioned vegetables grow. The gardens are the brainchild and passion of Bernard Lafon who gave up a career as an engineer to and created a place “where nature, food, economy and philosophy meet”.
We will have the opportunity to walk, taste and observe the secrets of French culinary traditions, visit the farm and enjoy a seasonal snack straight from the source!
Continue to Bordeaux where we’ll check into our hotel
(Holiday Inn City Center )and enjoy a three-course dinner.
Overnight in Bordeaux.
http://www.bordeaux-tourisme.com
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OCTOBER 18TH
Morning sightseeing tour in Bordeaux to admire this ancient port city with its grand 18th century vistas, followed by a visit to its wine museum.
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PALAIS
GALLIEN
REMAINS OF THE ROMAN EMPEROR GALLIENUS
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EXPLANADE
DES QUINCONCES
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PONT DE
PIERRE
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ALLÉES DE TOURNY
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PLACE DE LA BOURSE |
GRAND THÉÂTRE |
Then departure to St Emilion, deservedly famous center of wine production in this area. Guided visit of the medieval village including a wine cellar discovery with wine tasting at the Château de la Rivière
Fronsac.
Return to Bordeaux via the famous vineyards.
http://www.saint-emilion-tourisme.com
Dinner and overnight in Bordeaux.
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OCTOBER 19TH
Breakfast at your hotel.
Board your coach for your flight from Bordeaux Airport.
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