Here's a picture of Larry at lunch and a picture of the outside of the restaurant. Unfortunately, as we entered, the weather was very iffy, so we decided to eat inside. By the time that we left, the sun was shining and it was a gorgeous afternoon.
When we got to the restaurant, we were the only diners, by the time that we left, there had been only three other tables taken. Such is the availability of off-season. We are enjoying not having long lines for anything and being able to see and hear well because there are so few people. Yesterday on our trip through the cave, we were the only people on that particular tour. A private tour, you might say.
Our ventures today took us to the ancient rocks again (different ones), a river tour to see chateaux and some towns that are in the process of rebuilding/reconstructing their local castle.
In the town of Carlux, which seems to be on the way to lots of other places, we got out and wandered around the ruins of their church and castle keep walls. I couldn't actually determine which partial building were which, but it was a lovely place and from the pediment where the ruins were, we had a great view of this little town.
Here are some pictures of Carlux.
After Carlux, we were enjoying driving around to just see the villages here. Each village is very old and only a few of them are large enough to have modern stores and gas stations. We had to drive a distance of at least 15 miles to get gas today. Next, we stopped at a tiny village called Carsac. This was another of those towns where the few building in town are built directly adjoining the mountain, probably incorporating a cave entrance. This town also had a small romanesque church built in the 12th century, then expanded over the ensuing centuries. Even with the enlargements, it is still very small.
Here are pictures of Carlux.
We nearly passed this town by because just as we drove up to the little bridge over the creek to get there, there was a group of workmen stringing some plastic tape like the police use to cordon off an area. We had no idea what they were doing, but they kept including more and more area with the tape. We were afraid that they were about to string it over the entrance to the parking lot where we had parked, so we quickly retrieved the car. As we drove out of the lot, we saw that they were putting up a banner saying something about "escarpment" and it had something to do with cars or race cars. I have no idea what this was all about, but they were clearly getting ready for something going on tomorrow or this weekend.
We drove around bends in the Dordogne River which loops around and around in serpentine fashion. We stopped a couple of times at the lookouts to see the river far below. Then, in minutes, we were driving right next to the river. Soon we turned a bend and found this incredible castle just sticking up on a high rock. There was a compact little village inside and around it, but we were going to another town, so we passed up an expedition on foot.
This is the chateau at Montfort.
The town that we were headed to was Roque Gageac. Another unbelievable little village built into the rock. The rock had holes like doors so obviously there were "rooms" inside. There were also smaller holes where timbers had been driven inside the rock to help support a huge wall that encased the rock. Various people lived in these rocks over the centuries. Sometime during probably the 10th century, the troglodytes lived there and fought the Vikings. The Trogs were apparently the people who built the huge wall, which no longer exists.
There are lots of towns like this, but this particular village has a twist. Sometime around the beginning of the 20th century, a large piece of the rock fell down and obliterated the buildings underneath. Being that it happened during work hours, most people were not at home and only three people died as a result of the crash. The houses were rebuilt in exactly the same architectural style, so that it is nearly impossible to tell the old ones from the rebuilt ones.
Here are some pictures of the old and the new. Even the new ones are old enough (built in the 1920's) to have an ivy covering over them.
Finally, we made reservations for Saturday to take a river cruise from this same spot. We were already there, it is a bit a distance away, and there was a cruise about to leave with a very small contingent of tourists in 15 minutes, so we bought our tickets and took the cruise. From the boat, a recreation of a type of flat bottomed boat used to haul goods to/from nearby towns, we saw the rest of the town and saw the next two chateaux along the river. It seems that the chateaux were built about as far apart as one could travel to in a day on foot.
This was a fun thing to do. The boats are equipped with audio tours in English, however, the system was not working all of a sudden. Our guide did a great job of interpretting his explanation for those of us on board who were French-challenged.
Back to our gite as it was beginning to get dark. The roads here are all extremely twisty/turny and not a great deal of fun to drive at night. I especially feel a bit anxious as we pass through a forforestedested part that for some reason just reminds me of centuries past when forests were really dangerous places to be -- especially in the dark. We got back to find that all of the other guests were out for the evening. Since there is no where to eat dinner within 5 miles of here, that means a bit of a journey. Since we have been having four course lunches each day, we are not really looking for dinner out as well. Generally, we come back to the gite and have cheese with bread and some drinks, maybe some dessert if we were lucky enough to find some during the day. Today, being Larry's birthday, it would have been nice to have purchased a cake, or tarts. By the time that we thought to do it, they were just closing. There's always tomorrow.
Rule number one: never forget to get dessert.
