A quick update: we left Monpazier on Thursday morning, and learned the hard way that the GPS in our car has a few glitches. At one point, it showed us traveling across an empty swath of green pixels (which I definitely would have noticed, instead of the highway we were actually on). When it did locate us on an actual road again, it was off by several kilometers from our real location.

Nevertheless, we did make it to Carcassone where we spent the night inside the castle walls. In fact, we got a surprise upgrade from the 3-star hotel we had booked to the 5-star Hotel de la Citė, due to a problem of some sort with our original room. We had a nice (but very windy) dinner at an outdoor cafe overlooking the fortress, then wandered around the ramparts a bit before bed.

The next morning we toured the Carcassonne castle along with the rest of the Western world, plus a large delegation from Japan. We finally fled the crowds a bit before noon, driving a couple hours to the peace and quiet of the Camargue–a warm and sunny area of sandy marshlands where the Rhône river flows into the Mediterranean. There we saw white horses and pink flamingoes at a nature preserve, ate french fries and ice cream at a seaside town that kinda seemed like the Jersey Shore of France, and dipped our toes in the chilly sea. Then it was time to head back north 30 km or so to Arles.

Arles is a gritty but lively city with lots of Roman ruins, including an amphitheater reminiscent of the more famous Coliseum in actual Rome. We had a few nervous moments squeezing our rental car through the narrow streets to our hotel, where the staff took pity on the panic in my eyes and allowed us to park illegally in their loading zone, rather than braving the tiny alleyways again to try and find the garage.

We walked around the old city for a while, found a nice place for dinner, and then hung out in the bustling square in front of our hotel for a drink. Back in our room, we fell asleep to the sounds of younger and hipper people enjoying many drinks of their own in the very same square.

I can’t believe we only have four more nights in France!