Cahors, Rocamadour and Brive

Had this emailed to me yesterday. Not sure what point is being made but perchance there is a veiled reference to the amount of white wine passing through my princess lips??? LOL. Damned straight! I’m in France people. Do you expect me to live on snails and frogs legs? Have to have something to wash ‘em down.

Back to the blog... our room was actually much quieter than I expected so a reasonable night’s sleep. Didn’t like the shower over the bath, plus shower curtain to deal with, but not so bad as needing to complain to all and sundry as some on our trip are want to do. Breakfast and out the hotel for a 9 am departure. Clear blue skies and forecast of 18. I naturally was ready for the coach trip.

The scenery is again just lovely and the countryside changes every few kilometres. There are really good sign postings all along the way too, as long as you understand French!

Our first stop, about 2 hours underway is for photos at Cahors of the fortified bridge over the River Lot. Many places we have already been through have trees(usually Plane trees) that have been pollarded so that the height can be controlled. Cahors had lots of them.

A five minute drive later and we were in the city square where Laura has guided us into the market, towards the cathedral where we are then left to our own devices. The weather is perfect and this is a great little spot to wander about. Unsurprisingly J and I find ourselves at a wine stall so sample the local ‘black’ Malbec wine. Defying concerns of allergies to sulphur, I have bought a bottle for a future happy hour!

J is meeting a friend from Canberra who now lives nearby so I head to a little cafe where I manage to order myself a toasted sandwich. It was amazing. On the bottom piece of bread was spread a very creamy white cheese (maybe a cream cheese) and then smoked salmon. Then the second piece of bread was placed on top which had a thing stringy cheese on top, covered in mild herbs and a slice of lemon. The whole thing was then toasted. Yummy! After devouring my sandwich while seated at one of the outdoor tables, a very loud continuous siren went off. It went on and on, and had I not known better I would have thought it was an air raid warning, but clearly none of the locals were panicking. It was right on midday and went on for at least 2 minutes. Later I found out that this is the monthly siren testing, which is all well and good if you know what to actually do should there be an actual disaster or act of terrorism! Anyway, after my lunch I was happy to wander about. I bought myself a scarf at one of the market stalls and continued to wander up and down alleys. A number of the stores close for lunch, some of them for two hours.
This next bit is just for my sister... Vicki, you would be in your element here as a couple of stores I passed had hand knitted tops for sale. They were yarn and craft shops. Prices were outrageous and they weren’t even hand spun yarns! Didn’t think much of the patterns either.

The striped short sleeved one in the front was about 85 euros and the brown top, back left was about 135 euros. I figure Vicki can spin the fleece and I can knit the darn things! Any orders???
As I was wandering down one street, a lady was closing up her little shop for lunch. Next thing I see, as I pass by is that she brings out a small table onto the footpath in front of her shop, then 2 chairs and another lady from inside the shop brings out a bag that she empties onto the table, which is clearly their lunch! Priceless...

A further wander back into the main square and then it’s time to board our coach again.

Once again such changing but pretty scenery that my camera can’t keep up with so many lovely scenes. I did finally manage to capture one of the round houses regularly dotted about the countryside which turned out to be pigeon houses!!! How cool is that? There are also much smaller ones with a little opening at ground level for geese!


For those who checked out this blog earlier, this is where I got to when I gave up in despair over the crap internet access, so now you may like to read on...

We then go on to Rocamadour. For those of you who remember your Sunday school stories from the new Testament about Zaccheus the tax collector meeting Jesus, well this little village was settled by Zaccheus when he fled to Europe after being persecuted for following Jesus and for a reason unexplained, his name was changed to Amadour, hence Rocamadour, being the rock of Amadour. I reckon it should have been called Roczaccheus, but no one asked me for my opinion...

Anyhoo... it is an amazing sight and quite lovely to wander through when our fabulous driver Ramzi, finally got us through the curved one way tunnel dug into the hillside and then did a three point turn at the entrance to the village, whereby the last metre of the coach was hanging over the edge of a cliff and I was sitting in the back row thinking I might soon be meeting Zaccheus!
Rocamadour is perched on a cliff side above the Alzou River and is known as a resting place for pilgrims on their way to Spain,
Some of our group went right to the top of the village where there were 7 of the remaining 61 churches, but J and I were happy to wander about and grab a coffee.

While we were sitting having our coffee my eye caught some delightful little round mirrors hanging in the doorway of the shop opposite, so in we go, meet the charming owner who made the mirrors and after much fun banter with me deciding which of two I liked best, and J saying she will now have whichever one I don’t pick, I’ve jokingly asked for a discount and with his limited English and our high school French we are all laughing about how he still has to eat, and I’ve added that he no doubt has a wife and seven kids to feed! Purchases happily in tow we are back on the coach and are now headed for Collanges au Rouge which is a gem of a little village where all the buildings happen to be of red brick due to the iron ore content, in marked contrast to everywhere else which is limestone so white/yellow buildings.

It is an optional tour so we happily follow Laura as she takes us through this delightful spot.

So many lovely presented shops, but nothing I want to buy. We head to an outdoor cafe and have a glass of rose before it’s time to get back on the coach for our trip to Brive which is where we stay for the next two nights.


Our hotel is old and fairly basic, but at least there are handrails on the bath to clamber in to have a shower. Shame the hand held shower hose isn’t able to go ad high as my head - makes for odd manoeuvring come time to wash my hair. However, it’s all good. Dinner is in the hotel and we are pleased to sit with Betty and a David, plus Kee (I think he’s originally Vietnamese) from Sydney, plus 3 others. Entree was a large fresh garden salad which was lovely. Main was Beef Burgundy and mashed potato. I could only manage half the beef and passed on dessert which I think was an apple tart of some sort. Just as well I wasn’t at the other main table as we found at the next morning that Henry had stacked on quite a turn that he claimed the wine glasses weren’t filled enough, and even went so far as demand to see the manager. Have no idea wat I would have done if I had been at that table, but assume that it would have gotten ugly! But a very pleasant dinner at our table and then to bed, but unfortunately I didn’t get a lot of sleep so not a good start to a new day.
I will add as a final update, that I asked Laura about the pigeon houses to determine their purpose, and Elizabeth who is another Insight tour guide who has been travelling with us for two days, was able to tell me that the pigeon houses were traditionally dotted through out the farmer’s fields so that the pigeon droppings could be used as fertiliser! In fact the pigeon poo was so valued (called something like Columbines in French) that it would form part of a girl’s dowry.so there you have it.
Mind you Elizabeth then went on to tell me that in Rome where she lives, the pigeon numbers were so bad that the Council ‘fed them the pill’ to reduce numbers. I said that I suppose that made more sense than trying to fit the boy ones with tiny condoms!!!
And with that I shall finish the day’s ramblings.