Chateau De Lacan Brive-la-Gaillarde

This village clings to the side of a cliff. We first saw it in an articule in the TNT magazine in London.

It is another stop on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compestela. It has a famed image of a Black Madonna which is reputed to be responsible for many miracles.

From a distance this village is spectacular. We ...

... and a ruin of an old church which lit up at night.
Wednesday 4 Nov
Some blue skies finally appeared about 9am this morning so we set out to have a last wander through the village, take some more photos and more importantly buy some quiches for lunch - yum!

Another pretty little village this time famous for its red brick houses. A little more life than the last few villages and even a few shops open, one of which specialised in foie gras. As this is foie gras territory we did as the locals do and bought ourselves some which we will enjoy one night with one of the remaining bottle of champagne we still have in Scooby.

Gorgeous!!! Not a soul insight as we had arrived at lunchtime and we only met 2 other tourists, on deptarture - a retired English couple who had seen us in Blois - they recognised Scooby :) Rolling fog and mist coming up the valley started to clear and revealed a valley full of autumn colours. We made our way to the Waterfalls and then followed the riverside walk before heading back to Scooby to have lunch and further appreciate the view.

Set upon the River Vezere and quite pretty due to its 15th and 16th century Maisons a Tourelles, which looks like miniture castles due to their turrets. The rain had stopped for our little walk around the village but started again when we got back to the car - great timing!

We left the bordeaux region today for the dordogne valley - the ancient town of Sarlat - waaaay medieval-
I've determined that there is not enough of france to walk in to justify the amount of food we've been eating...oof. We havent even had any pastries or creme brulee we're so full from lunch and dinner!
we"ll post more in the matin!
Bonne Nuit!

... sometimes in France, if you ask someone if they speak English even in French, you don`t always get a great response. I`ve taken to asking `Do you speak Spanish or French?", as a way of getting around this. When I did this at the TI, the lady was quite surprised and said "Espanol? Si!" I got the feeling that she likes practicing as well, so that's how we conversed. And it's been confirmed - Spanish spoken with a French accent is still HOT ...

Because of the ...

... Pain in the ass!

I wandered around town, more or less retracing my steps from last night, and eventually ended up at Musee Agustins - it was free today, which is always good! There was a lot of Gothic sculpture, which is something I can't say I've seen much of before. I also can't say I was overly impressed.

Back to the hotel to pick up my backpack and say goodbye to Gonzalo - he's got to be one of the nicest guys I have ever met. He's ...

... but in the end it was still a lorry, albeit with foliage.
A man, bit like Julien Clerc, was carrying sound equipment back and forth, fiddling about, connecting things. An old woman sat heavily on a chair amidst it all, belly on her lap, watching, sighing, gesturing she was too old to help. Was she his mum, hoping maybe we'd take pity and lend a hand?

Time to move on, time to eat, time for La Table de Jean, a recommended restaurant at Coly, not far from here.........

to be continued

... drank in a beautiful Frenchy countryside setting and learnt heaps including that if you eat a heap of oysters with champagne and champagne sauce followed by foi gras and then duck confit and some lovely French wine your body really does not appreciate it although I think it should. It really was a fantastic week and I now enjoy making on a regular basis French foccacia with my ...