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I always wanted to drive up a mountain in Europe. You see it all the time in movies with those twisty turns and tunnels. Today we decided it was high time to drive up a mountain, and an awesome receptionist pointed out a castle on a map for us called Gourdon.

Traffic in France is interesting, here are a handful of observations from a wee old country town driver (Brisbane)…
- Lines on the road are just guides and do not mean you have to stay with in them, if you feel like driving on the wrong side of the road just do it until you see oncoming traffic.
- Indicators (blinkers) aren’t necessary and indeed useless, as most frenchies don’t understand that when you indicate you’re turning left it doesn’t mean you can turn right.
- Blind corners aren’t blind, you just step on the gas as you enter the turn! Also feel free to overtake on blind corners.
- Small cars in Australia are considered regular size here. And god help you if your driving a larger car/bus.    

I’ve been taking note of how scooters and to a lesser extent Motorcycles get around here. Scooters seem to be able to go literally anywhere including footpaths, so if the light is red and they’re in a hurry they’ll just pop on to the footpath, take the walking zebra crossing and jump back on the road.

I guess the general vibe is that people are trying to get to their destination as quickly as possible. Drivers seem fairly courteous, but if you’re slow they’ll do anything possible to get around you. And since I’m not a local and have no idea what’s ahead of that next blind turn you can guess I’m a little on the slower side.

In any case, driving up the mountain was a blast!

Here we are halfway up to Castle Gourdon, and we just had to stop to take a peek. Mountains and open landscapes like this simply don’t exist where I’m from, and was quite breathtaking to see. By this stage Cara and I were also taking a breather from the drive up as it was a little stomach churning. When we finally arrived to the castle we were blown away!

The castle is around 1000 years old, and why an eye opener for Cara and I. You can just imagine people living here and etching out a life over the years. On the far side of the castle was a restaurant overlooking the mountains with another breathtaking view.

We loved this place so much and wished we could stay a night here! Next time we’re around perhaps, I’m sure this castle will be here for another 100 years or so.

After a refreshing Pizza and Blanc Vin we drove down the mountain to Canne. The drive was a lot easier since we were hugging rock instead of cliff-face and pushed through the peak hour traffic. The Canne Movie festival is about two weeks away, so we could see quite a lot of preparation happening. Quite a few books we’ve read suggested that this town lives for the Movie festival and they’d be right as we found very little else there to keep us there.

Intent on enjoying the weather we drove along the coast and pulled up beside a beach. The Mediterranean Sea is a hell of a lot calmer then the Pacific Ocean and it seems a lot colder. Quite a few families were enjoying sun-baking on the beach as did we. I’m not sure about the rules here, but topless seems to be the way to go for women wanting full body tans!

I figured out that Gazoline means Diesel, refuelled the Citeron C3 and 22 litres we had done around 510 Kilometres. All in all a fantastic getaway day taken at our own time and exactly what I wanted to see in Europe with Cara.