(winner of the Young House Love book giveaway has been posted here!)

On the third leg of our European vacation (view Part 1: London and Part 2: Bournemouth, Winchester and Oxford), we flew down to the south of France to spend four days in Millau with our traveling partner’s parents, who run a Bed & Breakfast there.  This leg of the trip ended up being very well timed since I had a rough go of it in Oxford with a rather nasty cold.  A few days with a slower pace were just what I needed!  Millau is a picturesque town tucked into the Pyrenees Mountains with a strikingly modern viaduct framing the view.  While there, we were able to take a quick peek of the Mediterranean Sea, celebrate our hosts’ anniversary, visit the craftsman town of La Couvertoirade (originally owned by the Knights Templar) in Larzac (where they make Roquefort cheese!), drive through the mountainous – and just stunning – countryside (seriously, hairpin turns are not a figure of speech, people!), eat some of the best food on our entire trip, and experience our very first macarons!  The macaron lunch was a fun one since Mr. Lemon and I ordered on our own and neither of us speaks any French (okay, Mr. Lemon took two years in high school, but since we weren’t ordering cheese omelettes his vocabulary was pretty much useless!).  Up until that point our hosts had patiently read us every menu when dining out because there were very, very few English speakers in the area and certainly no written English menus.  Thankfully I noticed that this cafe had pizza on the menu and we managed to muddle our way through translating pizza toppings!  But when I saw another patron eating a macaron, I was bound and determined to get one.  I naively thought this would be easy to order until (we think?) she started asking us what flavor we wanted.  She finally brought us a plate of all the flavors, which is pretty much the best consequence of not speaking a language evah.  I must admit that these macarons were only alright and I didn’t quite understand all of the fuss…but then I had one in Paris…and I totally understood why everyone makes such a big deal over them!  But more on that in the Paris post!  Here is a glimpse at our time in the South of France…