Catacombs and Crepes.

We arrived in Paris after a 5 hour train ride and made our way to our hotel for the night.  The hotel was nothing special but it was clean and we quickly settled in.  We had an aggressive agenda for Paris and we made the most of our short time there before our flight home.

Our first stop was the Catacombs.  The Catacombs were originally a stone mine beneath the city that was eventually closed due to the vast cave-ins it was causing around Paris. The city eventually decided to use it as a place to store bodies after the cemeteries around Paris began running out of space (a problem that lead to diseased water and seepage of bodily fluids from the mass graves into the basements of adjacent homes). The bodies were originally just tossed down shafts into the catacombs. Eventually a man decided to spend some time and organize the bones into walls (made of femurs and skulls) and other strange sculptures. It must take a pretty disturbed person to want to volunteer to do something like this.

After convincing the clerk we were students (getting half off the admission price) and walking down a dizzying spiral staircase and lengthy stone corridor we got to the good stuff...


The long corridor

Creepy off shoots from the main walk through the Catacombs

A sculpture made by a mine worker of the Palace he could see from his prison cell before he was released.







I touched it...









There were weird shrines throughout



A cave in area.


Once we were out of the macabre maze we grabbed some crepes (apparently tons of dead bodies make Amy and I hungry) and headed over to the Notre Dame.


No hunchbacks here.




Our final stop was a the Eiffel tower. We were so exhausted from the endless walk over there that we just snapped a quick pic and hopped on the metra back to our hotel.



And that's that! The end to our 3 month European adventure. The flight back to Chicago was surprisingly enjoyable, save for watching the movie Contagion, and we were glad to be back state side. Now, time for the Holidays!

Our Last Workaway - Salles, France

Our final workaway brought us to a tiny village called Salles about an hour North of Toulouse, France. We were picked up from the Montsempron Libos train station by Fitz (one of our hosts) and drove about 30 minutes to their quaint farm. We arrived well after the Sun went down so we didn't get to see the property right away. We walked into their beautiful home (an old renovated stone building) and sat down with Ann and Fitz for a home cooked meal. We spent some time getting acquainted before turning in for the night.

The next day we took the grand tour of the house and of the surrounding area and talked about some of the work we would be doing while staying with them. Over the next week and a half the agenda consisted of rebuilding a tile roof and painting the frame of the terrace, installing a rain gutter and rain barrel, pouring cement and setting posts for a new and improved chicken enclosure, and enjoying the surrounding area and the company of our hosts.


This was an old house on their property that they plan on restoring as a vacation rental.

Here is a view of their house from the courtyard.

This was a nearby village with an old church.  They host arts and craft  fairs here in the summer.

The old stone built church.  There were some interesting grave stones in the floor...probably secret entrances to crypts filled with the knights templar treasure!

The local Chateau.





Me working on the tile roof

Amy sitting down on the job
 
We cooked thanksgiving dinner for our hosts one night.  We had turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and brownies for dessert.

Ann and Fitz were gracious hosts and we enjoyed the 10 days we spent with them.  Our original plan was to spend another month in Europe but all of the moving around had taken a toll on us and we were ready to be back in the good ol' USA.  We switched our flights to December 5th and headed to Paris for a quick visit before flying home.