No more villages today for us, we chose to have a lay day. We lay in bed till very late and then spent the day catching up on ‘stuff’. Rodney fixed up a small hole in Eileen’s exhaust pipe, while I sorted and labelled all of our fast increasing collection of photos. We got a load of washing done and finally reviewed where we would go after a day in Rocamadour tomorrow. We’re not sure where we’ll end up tomorrow night, but we’re going to head to the Atlantic Coast for a complete change of scenery as we’re feeling a bit overdosed on pretty villages. Wherever it is, we’ll go through the slowly perfecting system of choosing a good parking spot in a campsite:
- preferably flat, not too sloping to avoid the need for levellers
- not too far from the bathroom block, but not too close either…..
- not too muddy, always nice to have a bit of grass to sit on
- shady, or not too shady, depending on the weather
- tree branches not too low, to avoid damaging the roof and aerial
- front in, or back in, depending on what view we want
- 3 amp, 6amp, or 10amp, but definitely not reversed polarity
- not too close to other vans, but not too far from everyone
- angle of the sun for morning, or for evening heat, depending on the weather
- not too close to kiddies playground, but not too far from the swimming pool
Also noted in campsites here: as soon as the sun comes out the Brits and the Germans really do like to get their gear off and the men never seem to want to put their shirts on !!!
We finished our lay day with a walk down to St Julien-de-Lampon and sat in the Tabac / Pizzeria drinking gin and tonic. At 7pm we ordered a couple of pizzas and had a slap up dinner on the pavement watching the comings and goings of a tiny village on a Friday evening. We’ve discovered that, along with the shop closures just when you want to do a bit of shopping, eating out is also a very regimented occasion in France. Lunch time, has to be between 12 and 2pm and dinner cannot be eaten until after 7pm and the restaurants are often closing at 9pm. You just can’t have a late lunch or an early dinner unless you cook it yourself! With our travel times and movement around the country it makes it tricky sometimes, plus I guess we have become so used to seven day, all day trading in Australia and the UK, that we’re finding we have to really plan around this.
The drive over to Rocamadour this morning took us through some lovely villages and included some wonderful views. We parked at the top of Rocamadour next to the chateau and then meandered down the footpath to the base of the village at the Porte du Figuier.
There were a fair number of tourists in Rocamadour, but we had been expecting far more. We sauntered along the main thoroughfare to the Porte Basse, popping in to the occasional shop and happily accepting a free sample of nougat. At midday we walked back to a creperie for lunch and then, suitably stoked up, we headed for the first of 216 steps that lead up to the ecclesiastical part of the village.
We shuffled up the stairs and popped in to all of the chapels that were open; each one very different from the last. The Chapel of St Louis was so tiny and cut right in to the rock face.
Finally we plodded up the Chemin de Croix, looking at each of the highly decorative stations of the cross as we passed them, which takes your mind off how steep and long the path is to get back to the car park.
Back in Eileen, we took another good look at the map and decided to head for a campsite near Fumel. It took us about 1 ½ hours to drive up and down hills, through forests to the banks of the River Lot. The Les Catalpas campsite is empty, so we’ve picked a spot right next to the river with a view across to an interesting tower set beside the water on the far side. We have no idea what purpose it served; must ask the campsite owners tomorrow, before we leave.
Second game of scrabble: Rodney= 1 Laura= 0 (perhaps that was Rodney’s miracle for today!) But that’s one game each now.