Day 10 - before we left Beziers we went to the Canal du Midi with its 9 lochs. We sat and watched the boats going through one of the lochs. They looked like they were hire boats as some of the drivers didn't negotiate the loch very well - one in particular crunched the boat twice! Hayley was quite fascinated! The boats came in, then they shut the gates and the water level rose and lifted the boats up to the same level at the top part of the river, then they opene...

Day 9 and Lauren's 10th birthday! Very hot here today - got to 30 degrees! We started the day with birthday presents for Lauren (only a few) and lots of face times! Then the girls had to have a swim before we headed up to the fortified city of Carcassonne. It has 2,500 years of history and is a world heritage site. We visited an automatic museum which had lots of automated dolls. Decided to avoid the torture museum! The girls and I walked up around the ramparts b...

Day 8 - weather wasn't kind to us this morning. We headed to Cordes Sur Ciel this morning which is a medieval village dating back to the 13th century. It is located on a hill so we took the little tourist train to the top and wandered around the cobbled streets in the rain. Pity as the views from the village looked amazing too. We visited the museum of chocolate and sugar and saw some amazing sculptures made entirely of sugar - either pulled or blown or rock or p...

Day 7 - feeling rather proud of ourselves, we successfully negotiated the motorways (although not at 130km per hour which is the speed limit). Then we got to the toll booth and it wouldn't accept either of our credit cards. Luckily there were plenty of lanes so we didn't have a queue behind us. Had to ring for assistance. The ladies also tried our cards but with no luck. Fortunately we had the right cash on us and they took that! We've now bought a pre-paid credi...

Day 6 - we were up early to catch the bus into Bordeaux (didn't want to attempt driving in there again!!). We gave up waiting for the 9:35 bus at 9:50 and then as we were walking back in to the hotel it went past. Went back for the 10:35 and it was 20 mins late as well. Got into Bordeaux finally just on midday. Had lunch in the Place des quinconces where the French celebrated winning back their independence from the English in the 15th century. We started walki...