Every Day is an Adventure in Rocamadour

Thea and I left Bordeaux around 6:35pm on Monday, October 26. We first took a train from Bordeaux to Perigueux, which was fine but it did leave 5 minutes late and our next bus to Brive La Gaillard was exactly five minutes after our arrival, so we were a little worried about making it in time. In fact the bus waited, or was just running late, and we made it in time.
Then we had about 40 minutes in the Brive train station waiting for what we thought was another train to take us to Rocamadour but instead it was a bus. While we were waiting in the tiny station we tried calling a taxi to get us at the train station in Rocamadour when we were supposed to arrive, around 11pm. No taxis answered our call, so it seemed like we might have to walk the 3 miles from the train station to our hotel in Rocamadour.
We got on the bus around 10:30pm and the driver said we would be in Rocamadour between midnight and 1am, so even if we did have a taxi for 11pm, he probably wouldn't stick around to drive us at midnight or 1am if he didn't know it was a bus instead of a train. We made it to Rocamadour around midnight and a man and a woman both got off as well, but they weren't together because the man started walking down the street and the woman stood in the lot obviously waiting for someone to pick her up. Thea was asking if we should start walking, but I went up to the woman and asked if she knew of any taxis and she said there wouldn't be any at this hour, but she is getting a ride and she could ask him if he would take us to our hotel. Thank God he said yes and we didn't have to walk in the middle of nowhere in the pitch black. I offered to give him money for driving us, but he said no.
Before we came to Rocamadour, we emailed our hotel to let them know that we would be arriving after check-in hours, which ended around 10pm, so they gave us a code to get into a side door. The problem was that we were walking in the dark so it took us a while to find the door with the keypad on it. When we got in, a woman came out of her room, and she was the owner, and she led us to our room and told us when breakfast was.
Thea and I were so glad to finally make it to Rocamadour and to a bed! It was so stressful trying to get here and not know how exactly we were getting here. Of course God always works it out for the best. He is so good to me!

Tuesday, October 27
Today we had all day to walk around and explore this tiny town. Instead of talking all about it, I will just show you the beauty of this town in the Dordogne Valley in the Midi-Pyrénées region.

We woke up to this beautiful sunrise outside our window. First view of Rocamadour is pretty great!

Our hotel is at the top of the hill, so we walked down le Chemin de la Croix (the trail of the cross), which told the story of Jesus having to carry his cross to be crucified. This gave me a chance to share with Thea what I believe and find out a little more about her beliefs.

Château at the top of the hill, our hotel is just down the street from it.

Looking down at the main (and only) street of Rocamadour and the valley below.

At the bottom of the Chemin de la Croix was les sanctuaires, which is where there are a several chapels. This is Porte Sainte Martial, which led to les sanctuaires.

Les Sanctuaires and a gift shop :)

In the chapelle Notre Dame is the black Madonna, which is very famous in this area.

Inside La Basilique Saint-Sauveur. You can see that it was built into the stone of the mountain from the back wall.

This is where the remains of Saint Amadour were found and where his grave stays. This town was named after him and started because of his body being found and then "miracles" happened so of course they attributed it to him (really it was God).

It is amazing how the buildings were built into the rock. Such a beautiful area to draw closer to God.

Beautiful views of the mountains and a pretty bridge.

Porte Cabilière. Warning: there are a lot of portes (ancient door ways) in this town and I took pictures of them all!

The Grand Staircase where pilgrims would walk on their knees up to the sanctuaries as a way of paying penance. We walked down the stairs because we were coming from the top :)

Walking down the street of Rocamadour. Such a beautiful, old town!

Another porte (door)

Porte de Figuier and a really cool view of the château!

We just kept walking up the hill and would turn back and find even more beautiful views of the château and town.

I couldn't get over how beautiful it was! Coming during the fall was the perfect time with all of the trees changing, but it was still beautiful out!

Just chilling in Rocamadour

Looking up at the château from the main street

Still climbing :) We really got our work out for the day with all of the walking.

We are making our way around to the other side of the town to see all of Rocamadour

Almost made it to the view point at Hospitalet 

Who knew that there are prehistoric caves in Rocamadour! We found out and went to see the cave drawings! The cave was much smaller than I had expected, but it was still really cool and interesting to see. Unfortunately we couldn't take any pictures inside, so I can't show you. Sorry :(

After our tour of the cave, we walk around some more and sat by L'Hospitalet (chapel of the small hospital)

While we were sitting this cat came right up to us and kept wanting us to pet it, but I resisted.

Porte de l'Hôpital

Walking around Rocamadour, enjoying God's creation

I couldn't help taking more pictures as we got farther away from the town. Are you sick of the views yet?

We sat waiting for the sun to set over Rocamadour, but it clouded over right when the sun was setting

It was pretty watching the town light up as it got darker.

Rocamadour at night. We went out for dinner and there was lightning the whole time we were out, but it didn't rain until after we got back to our hotel.

Wednesday, October 28
Today we took a taxi to les Gouffres de Padirac, which was about a 20-minute drive from our hotel. It is a subterranean river.

There was fog all in the valley this morning. It was crazy to see!

Les Gouffres de Padirac. It was like being in Jurassic Park or something just without the dinosaurs 

We got to cross the river in a boat!

There is a natural dam in the river underground.

We had about a 30-minute walking tour that led us around the caves and we ended up climbing 300 stairs. It was very beautiful down there.

The taxi driver took us back to our hotel after the tour of the caves, so we walked over to the château since it's really close. You had to put 2 euros into a machine to make the revolving door move. I put in 2 euros and at first it just spit the money back out, but then it accepted it but didn't move, so Thea put in her 2 euros and we squeezed in the door together. It was a little adventure since we can't go a day without having some sort of adventure. :)

We couldn't go inside the château itself but we were able to walk around the top and see the beautiful views of the surrounding area.

Enjoying the views! I will miss the beauty of Rocamadour!

We walked around some more and found this beautiful cross at the top of the trail of the cross (le chemin de la croix).

Another view of the château

Espace Saint Hubert et son chien

Walking in the beauty of God's creation

After lunch we went to the Forest of Monkeys.

We got to feed the monkeys popcorn

A monkey climbing a tree

A baby monkey: so cute!

After walking around and seeing a bunch of monkeys, we went back to our hotel and waited for the same taxi to pick us up and take us to the train station. Since it was so dark when we first got to Rocamadour, I didn't realize how small the train station is. Typically train stations have screens that indicate what platform the train will come to and if it is running on time or if it's going to be a bus and not a train. This station had nothing but a few signs and one with a phone number you could call to get more information about your train.
Our train from Rocamadour was supposed to leave at 6:15pm and take us to Brive La Gaillard where we would switch trains at 7:05pm and go to Limoges. 6:15 came and passed and no train had come. Thea and I knew it might be a bus so while we were standing on the platform, we were looking out to the street to see if a bus came by but nothing came. Luckily for us a french couple was also there waiting for the train to Brive, so they called SNCF (the train company) and asked what happened to our train. Apparently it was cancelled, so they made some more calls, trying to find out if a bus or something was coming to get us. They were nice and told us everything that they found out. SNCF said that a bus had already passed by, but we said it couldn't have passed without us seeing it because we were here early and looking out for one. They said another bus might come around 7pm. Thea looked up to see if there was a later train to Limoges because it was looking like we would miss the first one. There was a second and last train to Limoges at 8:09pm, so we were hoping to make it on that one. We talked about getting a taxi to take us to Brive so that we could make our train, but we didn't get one.
We did call the taxi who had driven us here asking if he could drive us to Brive, and he said he would call us back; we think he was looking for someone else to do it. Thankfully a bus came at 7:10pm so we called the taxi back and told him the bus came. The bus driver said it would take about 40 or 50 minutes to get to Brive, so we were praying to God that we would make it in time.
It was very stressful and we were very anxious as we waited to arrive and it got closer to eight o'clock. Thea had looked up online the platform the train would be at so once we got there, we were the first ones off the bus and ran to the platform. By the will of God, we made it, and even though our tickets were technically for the earlier train, the conductor scanned them and didn't say anything about needing new or different tickets.
While we were on the bus stressing about making it in time, we agreed that if we didn't make it that we would pay a taxi to drive us from Brive to Limoges since it would have been around 45 minutes. We were sure we would have to pay extra at some point to get us out of Rocamadour and into Limoges, but we didn't!
God was so good in working out the timing just right so that we could get where we needed to go without having any real problems.
Even though I loved Rocamadour, I wouldn't go back there unless I had my own car to drive because it is much to hard to do anything and get anywhere without one.