Wednesday, October 8, 2014
We both slept in today and arrived at breakfast about 8am.
It had not rained overnight and the streets were all dry when I looked out.
Yeah! After I showered and dressed, I opened the curtains and you guessed it,
it was raining! Boo! We had a leisurely breakfast and bigger than usual because we did not want
to eat out at lunch on our own. We eventually headed out for our morning on the
town. This morning is the smaller morning market in Sarlat-la-Caneda.
Clay wanted to go to the top of the park across the street and enter
Sarlat from a different avenue. I wanted to go in the opposite direction and
walk the side of town we had not been on and look for a large section of the
ancient wall around the town. We started on our side of the traverse street and
found the first of the old gates, we think, as it was below street level. Then we
walked up to the top of the park and turned in.
One new thing we noticed today
that we had not noticed anywhere else since we got to Europe was little free libraries. We saw a couple of them today, including one right at the corner of
the park across the street! I don’t know how we missed it before as we’ve
walked by there a dozen or more times!
We found not one, but 2 different shops
that specialized in soap made from the milk of asses (burros)! I never imagined
such a product, much less 2 shops fairly close together specializing in it!
We
hit the morning market and confirmed that the knitting store and the view tower
elevator both opened at 10am. Clay was looking for the oyster vendor, but she didn't come today. So, we have an hour to walk. The skies opened up and
poured. We had to get out our umbrellas as it was too much for the rain jackets
alone. It only poured for about 15 minutes but that was enough to make
everything drip for the next 2 hours.
We made our way over to the other side of
town and walked the old wall and gates across and then took the tiny meandering
lanes and alleys all the way back across. There was nowhere, no matter how
narrow a passage we thought it was that we did not encounter a car! It was
crazy! We saw a lot of new and interesting architecture including some that
Christophe had shown slides and talked about in his architectural preservation
talk.
We were finishing up as we heard the bells ring 10am. Clay wanted to go
straight to the shop and tower. But, I wanted to try to wander some of the
higher streets above St. Sacredos near where the wall had been. There were a
lot of closed streets and it turned out we had been on all of them earlier at
some point anyway.
So, we finally came
out near the fabric store where I had decided I wanted to buy some bamboo knitting needles with painted finials on them. Before we got there we saw an
open art gallery that we hadn’t noticed before and I went in and picked out 3
laminated bookmarks of prints of painting at 3 for 5 E. I picked Rocamadour,
Lascaux and the geese statue of Sarlat. I wish I had found this place first since I prefer these paintings to the prints I got already! I got my needles in a size I hope I can
soon use, 6 but they look more like my size 9s at home. European sizing?
We went around to the tower which was open. But, when we asked
about going up were told it was ferme due to the weather. Huh, it was still wet
but it wasn’t actively raining as we stood there discussing it. As Clay said,
this has got to be the gravy job of Sarlat civil servants. The tower is only
scheduled to be open Wed., Sat. and Sun. but in reality there is almost always some
reason to not actually operate the elevator! So, we walked through the covered
market again and Clay bought a walnut biscuit for his dessert and I got 2 of
our most expensive macaroons yet, over 2E each. They were completely different
from the ones in Bordeaux (which they most resembled) or St. Emilion. They were
much more substantial and cakey.
Then Clay headed back down the traverse street
looking for a sandwich walk up window. At least I think that was what he
wanted. It is where he eventually stopped most of the way across town. He went
to La Mie Caline (which is where we got our sandwiches in Bordeaux too). He
got a Rosette Cornichons which was a small baguette with butter, salami and
cornichon pickles. It was very intensely flavored and after he started eating
it back in the room, he realized too late that he’d have liked some mustard. I
expect they’d have had it if he’d asked but he didn’t think of it then. I ate
the raspberry Bonne Maman yogurts we had put in the mini-fridge back on
Saturday. When we got back to the room after 11am, it had still not been
serviced. We checked the pool area about maybe eating out there but it was
dripping wet out there and no umbrellas were open, so we went in the room and
changed the service sign to do not disturb. I don’t think we will go back out
before our 1:15pm bus departure time because Clay has gone to sleep. We’ll see.
I just saw a little Welsh terrier leaving the Sarlat market from the
window. We had passed him earlier this morning going into the market. He was a
very busy little terrier, not to be distracted by people at all!
At 1:15pm we departed for Tursac where we visited the
Madeleine troglodyte village along the Vezere River. It reminded me of the Gila
Cliff Dwellings a bit. But, of course without a river and without a 17th
century chapel. The public is not allowed to visit the prehistoric portion of the Cliffside housing. The bus slowed today as we passed the family home of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince. The bus also drove a special route today so we would drive past a goose farm since everyone was commenting that with all the goose and foie gras, why no duck or geese farms.
Next we drove to Rouffignac to visit the privately owned “cave
of 100 mammoths”. There are over 6 miles of underground caverns so we rode a
little electric train to see only one level during an hour long visit. It was
amazing, again. It was cold and humid in there and the train was crowded so not
too comfortable and very dark. It was a cave. We headed back about 5pm. We
arrived at the hotel about 6pm. Sorry, no photos allowed.
We have an early dinner tonight at L’Octroi Bistro. We have a
folk music and dance performance after dinner. Monika assures us that the group will
require audience participation, but I personally am thinking that attendance is
not required. We’ll see.
On the bus ride home, Monika passed out tomorrow’s itinerary.
It is our last day and night on the tour. On Friday we just get a ride to the
Bordeaux airport. Breakfast buffet is from 7 to 9am. At 9am the bus departs for
Beynac Castle where we have a guided tour until 11am. We have to 11:30am for a
technical stop. At 11:30am we board a gabarre (a flat-bottomed boat) for a
cruise up river in the Dordogne Valley. At 12:30pm we have lunch at a
restaurant Hostellerie de Maleville. At 2pm we depart for Domme. We ride a
little train to the village center and return. It is a spectacular hilltop
Perigord bastide with classic Gothic architecture and unforgettable panoramic
views. At 4:30 or 5pm, we’ll be back at the hotel. We are requested to pack our
suitcases before dinner. At 7pm, dinner is served in the dining room of the
hotel. We are requested to have our suitcases outside our rooms before 9pm and
to pay our personal expenses by then. We don’t have any expenses and since we
are traveling with only carryon luggage we’ll plan to take it downstairs
ourselves when we depart on Friday morning.
It is 9pm and dinner is over. We had the entire upstairs of
the restaurant and it was incredibly noisy up there. I guess I should say we
were noisy. Clay had foie gras, which he liked very much, and duck breast which he ate
all of it so I guess he liked it as well. I had a salad which was mainly a
large hollowed out roasted tomato filled with creamy cheese and surrounded by a
few greens. I ate most of the cheese and some of the greens and Clay ate the
tomato. For main course, I had 2 small beef kabobs still not well done of
course but some pieces were more well-done than others and I ate those. We all
had a green square and a brown square, a little pot of ham & bean soup and
a ramekin of gratinéed potatoes. The squares were, I guess, a mousse of broccoli
and one of mushroom. I think everyone would have rather just had the actual
vegetables. For dessert we all had a small molten chocolate cake with vanilla
ice cream and whipped cream. It was very rich. It was 8:35pm when the waitress
came to take coffee or tea orders. That meant that 2 blocks away 5 minutes ago,
our folkloric performance had begun. Our table all declined after dinner drinks
and got up and left, but no one else left. We don’t know if they forgot or if
they were just all boycotting it. I did not go. Clay and one other couple and a
single woman from our table went and another couple and I turned into the hotel instead.
Clay is back and he said I didn’t miss much. He did say there
were 16 performers and that was a lot of bodies in that room with even half of
our group attending. Clay thought it was pretty well attended with most of the
group eventually attending. He said that audience participation was high enough
that he was not pressured to dance.
Photos
Photos
