Today was a drive that took us on a trip through the middle ages only to the north of the village of Issepts, whereas yesterday we went to the South . We drove through several towns and villages with buildings that were built during that period and are in many cases still inhabited.

Our first town was the town of Gramat, where there was an outdoor market in progress. It was perhaps the largest town we visited, with many old building and charming narrow streets converted to pedestrian traffic. We stopped and walked through the market trying to decide on lunch; either a picnic or at a restaurant. As we walked through the town the women made an executive decision, it would be a restaurant today. So no purchases.

We left town headed north towards St. Cere and focused on the countryside for interesting possibilities either to visit or to eat. We stopped at one small town, Lavergne, where there was a good example of a romanesque church likely from the 11-12th Century and took a few pictures.

We kept heading North and happened to see a sign for a view of La Cascade (the falls) so we made a quick left and headed into the farm country. After a few miles of wandering along a winding road we came to a parking area and found a sign pointing to a trail to the falls. The trail was pretty good but fairly rough so Deb and Mar opted to wait while Mel and I walked up to the overlook.

The falls were pretty meager in the waning months of summer but still a couple hundred feet tall. But the view into the valley was breathtaking, we stood on an escarpment and looked over a wide valley with steep sides topped with cliffs on each side with heavy forest all around.
Nestled down in the valley about half way was a small town with a beautiful church steeple. On one side there was what looked to be a building of sorts at the base of the cliffs way up on the hillside. At that point Mel and I made and executive decision that this was going to be our destination for a look around. So we walked back down the trail, met Mar and Deb and drove down into a medieval fairytale town, Autoire.

As we drove into town it was immediately apparent that this was going to be our lunch stop. So we stopped and found the ,Auberge de la Fontaine, a little restaurant right on the one lane road through the center of town. We sat out on the porch and ordered some regional cuisine. Marlyne had veal in creme sauce, foie gras with a fig, ratatouille, and frites, Deb had steak au poivre vert, with frites, a salad with melted Rocamador cheese and ratatouille, I had lamb in a garlic creme sauce, carrots frites, ratatouille, and a salad of lettuce, gessiers (gizzards) and lardons,

while Mel had a simple plate of a pork pate and a simple salad, but he also had a doughnut napped in whipped cream and a red fruit coulee (honestly the first time I've seen doughnuts as a menu item in France).

After lunch we walked across the street and went into the Romanesque church build in 1011, and classically austere and wonderfully serene. Mel and Deb went through a bit longer while I went out and around the building next door to look a ruined watermill down by the stream. The building up at the foot of the cliffs looks like perhaps a hermitage or a fortified building, kind of like Mesa Verde. It is hard to express how much of historic interest is in this area to be seen, virtually everywhere we've gone has some little gem of architecture or history. While they walked back to the parked car I walked further down the valley through the town where they picked me up several minutes later.

I could have taken hundreds of pictures without a qualm.

But alas, this being our last day here we had to head back to meet the owner of our house for the checkout process. We're leaving very early in the morning to catch trains in Cahors so we need to be on the road before sunrise. What a refreshing 3 days it's been.
Tomorrow we head for Arles, to meet Julia and Jose and spend a night with them before heading down to Marseille and our research on John Edward Thompson in Martigues. It may be a couple days before the next update but I'll be posting as soon as possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment