It takes a while to get somewhere else from Labastide Esparbairenque because first you have to get out of the forest and the mountains—the roads are steep and twisty-turny and about half a lane wide. I was able to take a road trip to the medieval city of Albi, about 2+ hours to the north. Albi is the heart of the Cathar resistance to the Pope. In the 15th century the Catholic Church built this enormous red stone fortress of a catehdral to impress the church's great power upon the resistors. The cathedral is a formidable Gothic pile—the 1400's version of shock and awe.

This hand-painted ceiling in the cathedral in Albi has never been retouched. Plus, I got to see saint's skulls in the cathedral—that was a new one for me.

I also went on a whirlwind road trip to Barcelona. I had never been to Spain before. It turned out, though, that we just got to have some lunch, walk around the beautiful Born district—full of cobbled streets, little shops and parks and do a forced march to Gaudi's Sograta Familia.  To the right is my buddy Jaclyn, checking the map. The forced march was not her fault!