C'EST LA VIE - THAT'S LIFE

Cahors 3rd June

We left the lovely services of Henry and his hotel this morning for new adventures outside of Puy L’Eveque. After two comfortable nights and some fantastic food, we discovered that Henry only knows one word of English and that is rugby, but then again it is the same word where ever you go in the world.

Our first stop today was the bakery for breakfast, second was Fumel for lunch supplies. Being Sunday you have to grab what you can as the shops are shut. Fumel was having a farmers market so we managed to get fresh cheese to go with our baguette and eggs for later. The lady serving us did a wonderful impersonation of a cow. Our taste of France today is Ecir de l’Aubrac, a cow’s milk cheese. Apparently the herd grazes on a plateau of grass and wild flowers which gives the cheese a flowery honey taste. I thought it smelt like a camembert that was about to turn into a blue vein.

Although we have found a new house in Cahors to rent for the month we are heading in the opposite direction to do a couple of geocaches. The first three were around the chateau at Bonaguil.

Even though the area is national park, there are lots of small well-kept villages. We did two more caches, one being a multi which required a bit of walking and thinking. For example, the question in French was “Combien de linge à linge a cette formation”. Google translated it to “how many linens on the training”. The actual task was to count the lines on a structure that could possibly train vines to grow along it. We thought it was a clothes line and we had to count how many tea towels were hanging on it. French language lesson of the day, go with your own gut instinct, we found the cache so we must have been right. The photo below is a new house done in the old style, but built in amongst the ruins of a chateau and the ramparts.

Caches found we headed to Cahors, a much bigger city with lots of promise and a rowing club. However we had to pass through Goujounac which was having its Biennial art exhibition. That involves long tables and drinking in the main square and going around people’s houses looking at their private art collection or something they wiped up at the cultural immersion workshops in May.

We finally arrived in Cahors and even though it was Sunday the town was busy because they are holding their June garden festival which involves going around the old town and looking at 25 secret gardens using a map. We just happened to be staying in a house that not only has its own private rose garden but is opposite the ‘Witch and Dragon’ secret garden. There is a dragon sculpture hiding in the bushes and every 5 minutes a cat appears, so far we have counted 6 different coloured cats, all well fed. Our new landlady is very nice, the house and all its period features are perfect and the location is very convenient for : Cahors - plenty of Cultural Immersion . Now all we have to do is enjoy our month in Cahors and everything it has to offer.