On the road (3) A (hopefully) sunny September road trip to Spain COMPLETED - Page 45 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Finally all caught up - your day at Monserrat brings back MANY memories from our April cruise - and your excursions through the Spanish and French countryside are always just so amazing - the waterfalls, the walled town, the bridge, the caves - how do you find out about these places before you go??
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Finally all caught up - your day at Monserrat brings back MANY memories from our April cruise - and your excursions through the Spanish and French countryside are always just so amazing - the waterfalls, the walled town, the bridge, the caves - how do you find out about these places before you go??
Good old trusty travel books! I love the Dorling Kindersley range and I tend to absolutely devour them - to the point where I almost know the descriptions word for word - to discover where we want to go. Actually, the day in the Dordogne was the hardest, as there were so many places we could've gone to. I think we'll have to go back for a weekend at some point in the future...
Friday 17 September – part four: France’s prettiest village
The Bear Gallery was given its name from the various bear scratching marks on the wall. It’s 11 metres (36 feet) high and in here, the rock formations are just breathtaking. It’s not something that any of the guidebooks focus on, so this was a pleasant surprise to me and I loved this area. There’s also a drawing of a bear as you go through. I’d not seen this mentioned in any guide before, but you can clearly see it and it’s a beautiful depiction and, to me, this was one of the unexpected highlights of our tour.
Then there are more paintings, starting with a red deer painting, again very clear and obvious what the artist intended you to see. Near to it is a negative handprint, surrounded by red dye. It’s thought to be a woman’s handprint, because of the size of it. It’s thought that, to create it, the artist would’ve had to have spat the paint out of their mouth. Nice. Here, you also find the Frieze of the Bison-Woman, which shows a mammoth and female shapes in red.
As with any good attraction, they save the best until last. You get a glimpse of the Frieze of the Spotted Horses when you first enter the caverns, but then you get a close-up of them at the end. It’s four metres or 13 feet long, with the actual shape of the rock used to depict the horses, which are drawn back to back. They’re decorated with 252 spots and six of the unique negative hand prints. Also in there is a fish, drawn in red, which is younger than the drawings of the horses. It’s interesting to know that was drawn over the others, as the horses were such a work of art, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to draw over them.
Before you exit, you’re taken into one final chamber, and can see the roots of an oak tree growing 14 metres down below the surface. They’ve put white question marks on the three trees that they think could own the roots and it was interesting to see where they were when we came out and to realise how much of the land the caves cover underground. Here, they also show off some of the animal bones here, including bears and, unbelievably, hyenas.
Then our tour was over and done with. It had been absolutely fascinating and well worth both the money we paid for it and the time we had waited for it. I had wondered if it would be, but it was and both of us loved it – thank goodness, especially after the drive here!
Of course, we still had the drive out to contend with and, off we went, heading for what’s been called France’s prettiest village, Saint Cirq Lapopie, which Mark’s parents had recommended to us. We started to see it from some distance away, as we drove along and could see why it had been given that title.
The closer we got, the more beautiful it became.
We headed up to the car park above the village and were able to get more photos from up there....
... before heading back down again and stopping at a couple of spots on the way back down for more shots.
This scarecrow was a bit X rated – look at the bottom of the shot and where the carrot is...
I love the cave paintings....they are so cool and I am sure seeing them up close as even cooler. Makes you really think about how the earth really came to be and where our ancestors came from. They village is just beautiful.
More beautiful pictures, but OMG, that scarecrow is so funny! But Cheryl, I never thought of you as a porn peddlar!
Although you did frame the shot in a more tasteful way with the leaves covering things. Had you not pointed out the carrot I never would have guessed!
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I love the Dorling Kindersley range and I tend to absolutely devour them - to the point where I almost know the descriptions word for word 
- to discover where we want to go. Actually, the day in the Dordogne was the hardest, as there were so many places we could've gone to. I think we'll have to go back for a weekend at some point in the future... 
Here, you also find the Frieze of the Bison-Woman, which shows a mammoth and female shapes in red. 
Katie's graduation
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