We Have Visitors in France - Van Life Europe
all right guys it is a good day we finally got far enough South where the weather has warmed up a bit it's still raining it's still kind of overcast but it is in the 50s Fahrenheit and actually the K it's warm enough for the kiddies to want to go outside and they're still a little cautious they still are trying to figure out Europe but in any event we are headed over to see my cousin and him and his wife are traveling here in Europe and have been for a while and they reached out to us and said hey let's meet up and so we excited I haven't seen my cousin in a lot a lot of years a lot of years lot of years and so they're traveling here from the United States so we're headed over there to see them we will meet up with them tomorrow but along the way we stopped off on this small little town it has turned out perfect for the cats and I know y'all missed me terribly in the last video I was under the weather I want you to know I'm not 100% but I'm am definitely getting better and I'm taking care of myself and we're doing good what you doing Baba what you doing Baba come on nner come ons to get home she's a little pring come on pug [Music] in so we left is Jan and we're headed to the dardona region now we haven't done a ton of research on that we do know there's some really cool spots over there some cool caves obviously some cool history and buildings and whatnot so we're looking forward to seeing my cousin as well as visiting that region but as we were driving across the countryside and forgive us for not getting any video we did notice that there was a lot of white cows and these are the beef cows of France and so they have a model of them here maybe when we're driving tomorrow we'll see if we can get some pictures but they're really cute they kind of got little sh shaggy hair like they're all ready for the winter we don't see a lot of beef cattle here in France or at least we haven't until now and we've seen a few a lot of dairy cows that's where we are but anyway I thought maybe we'd take a quick stroll around this little town uh before it gets dark there's a lot of things to love about France there really is I mean guys we are loving this country the roads have been really really good in fact I would say the roads are better than the US some of the best roads that we've ever driven on holistically across the country and all of a sudden you're coming up in these little towns and you just find these little historic niches where kind of everything was protected and some of this stuff dates back to I don't even know when 1100s 1200s maybe even before 1400s and so that's really cool and also camping here is really super easy there's little Camp spots everywhere this one right here in town is free if you want electric or water you put some coins in there and you pay for service but you can see we're no more than a block or two away from this big church or this Big Clock Tower and right here we can even buy some bread right here in the machine the vending machine and well there's a baker right across Bakery right across the way so we've been loving the bread the cheese the cream the milk the leaks the shallots all the delicious foods the cheese I think I already said that maybe it's worth repeating but anyway look at this old historic church or building we'll see if we can get in there so I can show you guys I don't know but it's kind of a windy day oh listen up it's kind of a windy day but I was able to pop the Drone up a little bit hopefully those shots came out okay but here we we go engl Saint ET let see if we can get in it doesn't look like I can get in but if you guys can see the walls of this church I'm sure it's had some remodeling or some stuff done to it but still the walls are just worn the brick walls and as we come down in here there's more of the more of the structures it's all just so tight in here look at this this the old rof lines with the Moss and it looks like this kind of brings us out to the main road here well this morning we hopped up and to be honest with you we kind of had a long uneventful ride down to the dardona region and it's just we're running from the weather we're running from the cold but more importantly super excited to see my cousin I probably haven't seen him we were trying to figure it out it's probably been at least 20 years and he's just not a relative that I knew super well we grew up in different parts of the US but we made it to charlot a day before they're here which has given us an opportunity to sort of scope out the town now we found this little campsite up on the hill sort of overlooking this little medieval town now sarlot is sort of one of the most historical beautiful medieval cities in this dardia region which boasts a lot of cool things and one is really high priority and that's going to be to some his see some historic caves but I will tell you this town is cool now the problem is it is forecasted to rain like 100% Today 100% tomorrow 100% the next day and it's also supposed to be cool cold surprise surprise that's how it's been since we've been in France anyway but we got a little break in the rain like like an hour and I was able to pop up the Drone and give you some sites of this little town now I did go down and walk around the town to see it and these little narrow streets and little restaurants and churches and stone buildings and some of the stuff that you guys have seen in some of our video other videos was really really awesome here in sarlot the problem is it is raining so hard and I don't have my umbrella and I just was only able to pull out the camera a couple times to get a few shots so as amazing as this little town is and the Hub of this little dardona region I just didn't get any great footage of walking around and showing you the city fortunately we got to the little drone shots so in this case we're both disappointed we didn't get to explore as much as we did but we certainly enjoy this as a hub and guess what tomorrow we get to meet up with our cousin we're super excited and we're going to head off to a really kind of interesting unique Adventure good morning guys big surprise it is raining Tada and you may hear some background conversation going on and that's because we have met up with Kurt's cousin Mike and Betsy and they are taking us to a museum now what's exciting guys you know we don't do a lot of Tours because of the budget so they're they're gifting us a nice tour to see something absolutely amazing I'm going to wait y'all make y'all wait a few minutes till we get inside to tell you what it is because I'm having to be careful and protect this pocket from the rain but you guys are going to love this let's go see it so this museum is really in a cool building this kind of feels like you're partially underground and that's really cool because we're actually going to go down into some caves with some really really really old uh Cave wall paintings so we're going to take a tour and learn a lot more about it and then I'll be able to tell you a lot more of the history but we are super excited so we just toured the cave un un fortunately guys we are not allowed to video or even take pictures when we're inside of the cave but I got to tell you it was magnificent and unbelievable one of the most famous caves with cave art in it in the world it's called Lasco uh now we are in an after room where we will be able to film and show you some bits and pieces where they've done some more uh reproductions so I will show you some of that as I tell you the bits I remember from the tour first Lasco paintings were done about 21,000 years ago a few things that make Lasco so famous are one whenever it sealed itself up uh they don't know when that was thousands of years ago it did it so well that moisture didn't get in very few uh stagma stag lights I can't remember what they're called formed which means there was very little moisture in there and the color was preserved in incredibly well one of the most color preserved cave art findings ever in the world so it is beautiful to look at uh another thing is there are symbols dots little graph looking kinds bars zigzags they don't know what they are but they are definitely connect Ed to different pieces of the art they believe it's some sort of communication that had started at that time another one is this cave uh includes some animals that did not exist in real life and when the cave was discovered which I'm going to tell you how that happened CU it's a very cool story in a few minutes uh Pope came and he called this area the cine Chapel of cave art which of course started to make it famous and he named this mythical creature that is at the very beginning of the entrance to the beautiful art and he called it a unicorn it does sort of resemble a unicorn except for it has two horns but the the mythical creatures showing up and then also the the tribe or the clan that did this this artwork uh seems to be the only ones that had animals with big bodies IES little heads and little tiny legs so a little creativity in the artwork here and then probably one of my favorites is I think that our tour guide told us that only three times in all of cave art history have they discovered the color purple and The Color Purple is bright and distinct in this cave and it's used twice and it's used in some of those symbols and uh they mix the red rocks and the black rocks and then they had to burn it but it is a distinct purple and Lasco has that so with those cool things that makes Lasco one of the most famous relative to other caves throughout the region it is small um I mean we could easily walk it in less than an hour and that's stopping to admire everything some caves are kilometers long this one was maybe 2 to 300 M long there are portions of the cave that are designed for anyone that walks in to see and then there are little hidden sections where it looks like only a Chosen Few were allowed to descend down into a shaft and see some special art so it's a got a lot of cool features to it I so wish we could have filmed it for you but they just wouldn't let us I'm going to show you as much as I can here in this reproduction room and on that note let me tell you the story of how it was discovered so I told you the cave art was done 21 22,000 years ago and it was discovered in the 1960s by four boys who were playing out in the field and a tree had fallen over and underneath the tree stump there was an opening and as little boys will do they scurried down in there with just one little tiny Gaslight and uh they discovered the cave now what else you need to know about Lasco is for for several years during the 60s they they did allow people to access the cave as it was out in nature in the in the the fields here but they started to deteriorate quickly because of the oxygen and the moisture getting into the cave after thousands and thousands of years so they sealed it off only a few scientists go in once or twice a year just to check on things but before they did they went in with electronic lasers and totally scanned the entire cave system and they reproduced it exactly within a millimeter everything is exact so the cave that we just toured that I can't show you is actually an identical reproduction of the real thing and the real thing is protected and will be saved forever and ever and the colors will not fade so that is pretty epic now they did a few more reproductions and that's the room we're in now and that's what I'm showing you the footage of so as our tour winds down there's one last little tribute to the four boys playing in the field that stumbled up on this [Music] thing and I think earlier guys I had told you 1960 they discovered it but it was 1940 it was in the 60s that they sealed it up again [Music] now what's interesting is once everything was discovered and that part of their lives was over they didn't see each other again till 40 years later and there they are none of these boys are still alive today the last one passed away just 2 years ago at the age of 93 but what a find a day of playing in the field turned out to be all right let's head back to the car guys I will tell you that the cave and the paintings and the museum were really captivating uh it was just um really kind of surprising that how ancient some of this stuff is and really to hear the stories of what the different creatures were the paintings and stuff like that but I think what was more intriguing for me is to imagine what they were trying to depict in the pictures and of course there are some ideas or some suggestions that they presented to us but nobody really knows and so as thiso stuff goes back it's like so many things that we look at we really don't understand or comprehend but just to imagine what was going on what it would have liked to been in those caves and that type of Lifestyle uh it's like nothing I can describe so I think this was just an absolutely amazing tour they did a really good job of recreating the paintings the Cave the Ambiance of telling the story absolutely riveting and so I hope you guys enjoyed it but we're off tonight our next adventure so we drw about 45 minutes north on some beautiful windy roads through the Foothills beautiful but so much rain we've made it to this town that I will put on the screen because I can't remember the name of it it starts with a pee and we're going to grab some lunch with Mike and Betsy and this town is stunning right now we're on a little pedestrian street and there's lots of little alleys and a big beautiful church with round domes but first up is definitely lunch Life Is Good Life Is Good Life Is Good Life is good walking on the great skies and it ain't fun some days you just wake up and the sun don't come I take a deep breath and meise I want to see the world brand new eyes don't have much money in my pocket but I got what I need I got my friends around the table my family even way my don't work out like I thought they would I know that know that know that life is good life is good Life Is Good Life Is Good Life Is Good lost beneath the dark sky the day is done if I hold on through the night I know the sun will come I'll take a deep breath and Reise tomorrow I'll be walking under clear BL don't have much in my pocket but I got what I need I got my [Music] friends so at first glance this church may not look as as ornate as some of the others uh that we've taken you into but to see from the inside the onion looking domes and the architect texure and the structure of the ceiling is amazing and it's dark but I don't know if you'll be able to see it but this wall back here is wood carving with so much detail and the number of detailed stained glass windows in this church there's a lot of them and the chandeliers may be my favorite it's just amazing how far they can span for these Arch roof ways it really is just something to behold and I hope you guys can see this we're having a hard time seeing it because of the darkness with this wooden sculpture a snows side is incredible so as you guys know it is pretty much been raining every day since we've been in France for 4 weeks and down in this southern region it has been really raining for the last couple days and the rivers and the flooding is apparent I'll try to show you right here but uh there are flood warnings and people are out just watching this River Rise yeah we watched them toast some cars yeah there's a parking lot down there by the river that's flooding and they've been toying cars out there for safety you can see those trees are on what's normally dry land oh there's logs going down the river they are definitely dealing with a flood here in this town and you can tell the residents are concerned before we wind this video down I want to take a minute and tell you about our cool hosts for the day Mike and Betsy yes they're family but they're also Travelers like we are they just finished a really cool segment of the Camino over in Spain and they're slowly they're working their way up to Paris before they head home to the stage to see family but they're not staying home long they're going to hit the road again and be back over here doing more traveling I have a feeling you will see them again in the future what a special visit I got to say it's always nice to meet friends on the road but to meet family it was an amazing visit and we are thankful and we're also passengers which is very very rare yes in a tiny little car if you like this video be sure to subscribe to our Channel and hit that notification Bell so you guys know when we put out new videos and don't forget you can always follow us over on Instagram to see what's going on in between videos cheers guys
2024-01-10 03:49
