You may have read that parts of France have been having some pretty severe weather, in particular near the Franco-Italian border. We’ve certainly felt the effects of some of that with heavy rain, but it seems to be much calmer now.
We’ve still been able to get out and take our chances with the odd shower. The Dordogne is reputed to have 1001 castles and châteaux and you certainly can’t travel very far at all with seeing some of all shapes and sizes along your route, from the very well known, to the privately-owned and others in ruins. We visited Château de Castelnaud, one of the better known and imposing castles that was a stronghold on the river. It was of interest as it houses a museum of medieval weaponry and examples of siege engines such as trebuchets. The castle itself is impressive but the displays of armour, crossbows, canon, etc. brought it to life.
When the weather looked more settled we took our bicycles out for a ride along a ‘Voie Verte’ or Greenway, a former railway line which starts on the outskirts of Sarlat and heads east along the Dordogne. It was a pretty relaxing cycle, passing small villages along the way and cycling through old railway tunnels and over carpets of acorns, walnuts and chestnuts. We had decided to take our chances on finding somewhere to get lunch and found a place open about 15 kms along the route. We were intrigued by the 14 euro ‘Menu Ouvrier’ or workmen’s menu that was advertised outside and the place was already filling up. We took our chances with the menu and it turned out to be 5 very enjoyable courses of simple, tasty french fare. So an excellent find and a good long cycle afterwards to work off at least part of one course! It’s a wonder that any work gets done in the afternoons if that’s how the workmen eat…
On the subject of walnuts, the nuts are starting to fall from the trees and be harvested. For larger orchards the harvesting is more of a mechanical process using vehicles. When we met up with Ros and Frank a few weeks ago, Frank told us about a tool which is used for smaller scale harvesting of walnuts and we have seen a couple of those in use this week. They consist of a rugby-ball shaped metal frame on the end of a broom handle, with an infill of finer and springy metal wires. The ‘ball’ is pushed along the ground like a broom and the springy wires flex as it is pushed down and let the walnuts pass into the middle of the ball. The wires are then held open to release the walnuts. We stopped to talk to a lovely older chap who was using one in his orchard. He said that such tools were originally used to pick up tennis balls and that someone had the idea of using them for walnuts. We’re not sure how true that is, but he looked like he’d been around long enough to know!
