St Cirq Lapopie

For the last week and a ½ we have been staying in ‘The most Beautiful Village in France’, or so they say.  I'm sure there are others who would lay claim to that as well but it is certainly in the top 10!

It is high up a cliff with the River Lot flowing through the valley below. Our campsite is on the banks of the Lot, where there is a small shingle beach enabling us to swim in the cool waist-high waters….so refreshing. The village is a 700 metre climb either along the road or through the woods—it’s 700 metres whichever way you go.

During our first week the weather wasn’t very good and we found ourselves back in jeans and jumpers, but since 21st June the sun has come back with a vengeance and we’ve had to swim 2/3 times a day just to keep cool. Our pitch is right next to the river which makes it easy, even though we have a small laurel hedge just in front of us.

The owners are very friendly and helpful and they have a small restaurant which cooks our meals whenever we want them to!

St. Cirq-Lapopie is now described as a ‘craftsmen’s village’. It really is quite unique with a photo opportunity at every corner. Most of our photos of the village itself were taken at ten o’ clock at night when we went for a meal there it gives the village a deserted feel and also you don't get to see the hues of the sunlight pouring through the streets.  During the day it is filled with visitors and everywhere is open, which gives it a real buzz, but the heat put us off making the climb during the day.

 

That's our caravan and awning in the bottom left-hand corner of the picture


and these are some of the views from our pitch

What a difference a week makes!

The next picture shows nearby Chateau des Anglais - doesn't look much but the minimalist exterior hides a labyrinth of rooms and tunnels which give access to the top of the cliff - was apparently used by the English to hide in after they'd fought with the French in St Cirq.

La Terrasse Romantique

While touring the immediate area, admiring the sites….Grotte Peche Merle, an underground cave with pre-historic drawings and some pretty impressive rock formations, Chateau De Cenevieres, a 13th century castle which is still lived in and open to the public, but was closed for lunch!!!! It also reminded us that we hadn’t eaten anything except a bowl of cereal at breakfast. We spotted a sign advertising Restaurant “La Terrasse Romantique”, sounded intriguing.

At first we thought it was just down the road, but soon realised it was a little further in Calvignac, yet another beautiful hilltop town overlooking the River Lot. It took about 10 mins. to get there and after a long climb in the car we parked and walked the final few hundred metres. We were a bit concerned that we may be a little late as by now it was 1.30pm, but were re-assured by the menu outside which stated that lunch was served until three.

The restaurant terrace was quite small, on two levels. The higher level had a table for 4 and a table for 2, and the lower level had a table for 6, a table for 4 and 2 tables for 2. Each table had a ginormous umbrella which offered very welcome shade as you sit admiring the view of the Lot a couple of hundred metres below. It was only about half full. We chose a cosy table for two and after about 15 minutes, during which time we struck up an interesting conversation with four Aussies on the next table who had hired a houseboat on the Lot for a week, monsieur presented us with the menus.

We ordered two savoury crepes and a pichet of wine. The Aussies left and we sat and chatted to each other. After a while we realised that a table of three that had ordered before us still had no food on their table. When their first course finally arrived it looked very good and our mouths were watering in expectation of our crepes.

An hour and a half after first sitting down, fortified only by a jug of iced water, our crepes finally arrived together with a basket of bread (we had to remind him about the wine!).

We debated between us as to why it was taking him so long to cook and serve each dish, considering that everyone there was eating either crepes or salad. Julie was convinced that monsieur was on his own, having to cook and serve everything. I am sure I heard him speaking to someone in the kitchen but on reflection he may well have been talking to himself.

And then we realised that although the “Vue magnifique” was one of the big selling points of the restaurant it wasn’t the view that made it romantic. The amount of time you had to wait for your food would be enough to force any couple, no matter how distant when they arrived, into intimate conversation just to pass the time away.

The funny thing is, we actually enjoyed the experience – the food, when it eventually arrived was excellent, and nobody complained as everyone could see that monsieur was rushed off his feet and doing his best. We might even go back but if we do I think we’ll make sure we arrive at 12 prompt so we can be home by 3!

Nice views but have I said something to upset him??

Bergerac

It wasn’t until we were actually back in France that we began to think about where we wanted to visit. Originally we thought we would head back to the Pyrenees to a campsite we found on a previous trip 5 years ago. That was before we spent longer in Spain than we had planned and ultimately longer in Portugal.


Our eagerness to leave the Spanish Basque country brought us further north on the west coast than we had originally planned as well.

All well and good because we found that we really liked Les Landes, and it’s people, and will certainly be visiting it again for future holidays.

While in Les Landes region we changed our minds several times before settling on the places we wanted to visit before the summer holidays in Montignac. Cahors had always been on our itinary, and having spent a couple of summers when the boys were younger near Sarlat we thought we’d pretty much done ‘The Dordogne’. So once we’d left St. Emilion we headed to camp sites both east and west of Cahors to visit ‘The Lot Valley’ and find all its treasures.

The Dordogne and the Lot rivers are much closer together than I realised and the territory between them is filled with Bastide towns and villages which are enchanting. It is quite easy to drive the distance between the two rivers which is only 40/50 kms.

While staying on the campsite to the west of Cahors we had a lot of rain…and I mean a lot of rain. So apart from holding up in the caravan we went driving……

It was while we were out driving to Ville-Neuve-sur-Lot (which we were both disappointed with) that we thought about going back to the Dordogne to spend the day in Bergerac.

We have only ever driven through Bergerac before and so many people have told us what a lovely town it is. This was our chance to visit it at our leisure.

Below are some of the photo’s we took which don’t capture the specialness of the ‘old town’, but do give you an idea of what an amazing place it is.

Here I am posing in front of Cyrano!

The bells on this church have their own balcony for servicing!

As you will see from the last photo, the Dordogne river was flooded so there weren’t any boats running to give tours along the river, but it didn’t prevent us from enjoying the character of the place.

Lot What Nots

Of course the only reason that we decided to spend some time in the Lot valley rather than the nearby Dordogne is because “Lot” rhymes with so many more words than Dordogne – in fact the only one I can think of for Dordogne is Bourgogne as in;
Drinking a glass of Bourgogne, watching the river Dordogne.

The Lot provides far more opportunities. So, we could have posted an entry about Villeneuve-sur-Lot which, despite its position, is one of the most unattractive towns we have seen for a long time, with the title “A blot on the Lot”.

The recent cold and rainy weather could have inspired an entry entitled “not so hot on the Lot”.

Julie has already cringed at me saying, at the end of a riverside walk, “well that’s your Lot then” or saying as we approach yet another “sur-Lot” town “I’ve heard there’s a Lot to see around here”.

I could go on but it doesn’t seem fair to subject our blog readers to any more bad humour. Mind you, it won’t stop me thinking up Lot(s) more bad puns to subject Julie to – and you can understand now why the poor girl is so looking forward to coming home in September!

Incommunicado

We are now on a very pleasant campsite on the banks of the Lot River in a village called St. Cirq-Lapopie. About 20 kms east of Cahors.

We arrived here last Thursday after spending 11 nights on a camp site mid way between the Lot Valley and the Dordogne Valley. That campsite didn’t have any wifi or mobile phone reception and it was very strange being totally incommunicado for so long. Which also caused a little anxiety through the family as it was while the worst of the rain hit France and there was a lot of flooding. We knew very little about it, just that we were caravan bound for a few days due to the unusually heavy rain.

I want to write a couple of blog entries about the places we visited there, but please be patient while Peter rids himself of the need to make continuous jokes about ‘The Lot’!

‘This is your lot for now’!! More to follow very soon!

We're OK

We've received a few worried text messages and emails from people who have seen the news about the devastating floods in Southern France so just thought we'd post up a quick  blog entry to say that we are OK.  The region we are in has also had torrential rain and some flash flooding but no loss of life.  The two major rivers in this area, the Lot and the Dordgone, have both risen to levels that have caused some local flooding but everything seems back in control now and, for the first time for quite a while the sun is shining again today!

Gastronomy

Now, you might well believe that we have seen and tasted some very different and wonderful foods since leaving Wycombe, and you would be right…..I think it’s time we mentioned just a few!

In Kent near to where we were staying there was a fantastic little farm shop and bistro. The food was simple but outstanding, light and delicious, in fact I’ve recreated some of the dishes we had there while we’ve been on our tour.

Whilst we were in Spain we were very disappointed with the vegetables. Now here is a country which has a wonderful climate throughout the year so has the capacity to grow different vegetables throughout the year too, but concentrates on oranges and olives! But we have to say they were without doubt the best oranges and olives we’ve ever tasted. In fact I was shown how to pick good oranges on a Spanish market and the knowledge given to me there has not let me down since.

Portugal has to be renowned for their portion sizes. Peter and I were given some sound advice by a waiter in Portamao…..that Portuguese restaurants are very happy to sell you ½ and ¼ portions. We never ordered more than a ½ portion of anything, and were always amazed at how much we were given to eat. Vegetables were more abundant than in Spain, and the food though delicious and beautifully cooked was quite plain.

Travelling through Spain and Portugal Peter and I both managed to lose a satisfactory amount of weight. We put it down to more exercise and the warmer climate, but we are again in France where they certainly know how to cook, not only in the restaurants but also the shops have so much choice. I was reminded just recently that in France they have approx 27 different micro-climates and very good produce is grown within each of them. There’s no need to import food, they have all they need!

Say no more, I have noticed the weight we’d lost travelling so far, has slowly started to creep back on!

We are still very active, (more so than in Wycombe), but unless we step up the exercise and cut down on the portion size we will come back home larger than when we left!

Of course the very good wines have nothing to do with it as we do limit our intake of those too…….. ;-)

Whether you eat in a supermarket café or a good restaurant the presentation and quality of the food is remarkable. We have our favourites in the markets too, which usually present us with some gastronomical delights we’d never think of trying.

Vive La France!!

Bordeaux

Here are a few pictures from a lovely day we had in Bordeaux earlier this week. Great city, highly recommend it if you're ever in the vicinity.