A New Adventure in France

After getting our bearings on our first day here, we’ve been exploring a little further afield on bicycles, motorbike and our own two feet. We’re surrounded by beautiful medieval villages, variously described as bastides and bourgades. Many have hilltop locations and their purpose was primarily to survey and defend the River Lot. Several also served as holiday residences for the Bishops of Cahors, the main city approximately 25 miles to the east of us. As soon as you head away from the river, the roads start going uphill so cycling and walking is more challenging and takes longer. We’re not in any rush and we are enjoying having the time to stop and explore nearby places.

We’ve been blessed with good weather thus far and life on the river takes on a pattern of still mornings with the water like glass, a breezier mid part of the day and the wind drops again in the evening. The river appears to be teeming with fish of a serious size (roach and catfish) and as the flies hover in the evening there is a show of jumping fish for some time. Our nearest neighbour is a Dutchman who comes to this site specifically for the fishing. He trails a motor boat down here and goes out overnight. Joe has seen the photo of the 1.8 m fish he caught last week, but he has come back empty handed over the last few days.

Whilst the river fish are not prized by the locals for their taste, we have been enjoying some French delicacies. In Montrichard Joe was very happy to discover a small restaurant serving galettes sarrasin complets – buckwheat crêpes with ham, cheese and egg – served with a bolée de cidre – a cup of dry cider. These are actually a Breton speciality and have been a favourite of Joe’s since a trip he made to Saint-Malo in his early twenties.

More locally we found a small restaurant on a bicycle ride – Restaurant du Pont at Castelfranc – and enjoyed an extremely generous portion of moules frites and a pichet of local rosé wine. Another local speciality we have enjoyed as sustenance on our walks are walnut tarts – they’re also well known in the Dordogne region north of here, but as we have walnut trees in the field behind the campsite, we can consider them local to here as well.

For our day-to-day cooking we have the two ring gas hob in the campervan which we use surprisingly little, especially when the weather is good. We bought a Cobb barbecue early last year and continue to be amazed at how well we can cook on it. The bbq has a large bowl with a central chamber for some charcoal briquettes and once they are heated you can put vegetables around the side and leave to cook. You can griddle vegetables and meat on a metal plate as well as heat other foods. You can supposedly roast a whole chicken or bake a cake – plenty of time to try that out if we’re so inclined.