A Bit of Shopping

Dear Friends and Family, It is Thursday morning, 4 October, and we are beginning to think seriously about moving on. We will leave Puy L’Eveque on Saturday and travel for about 5 hours and spend the night in a little place we passed through on our way to Mende and on the Montpellier, the village of Le Puy-en-Velay. It was a sort of bustling place with the most amazing rock formation. Because of traffic, I was unable to stop and get any pictures, so I thought it might be nice to return. Polley and I are planning to have our hostess, Ann, to dinner at our place tonight. For the last couple of days we have been putting the menu together. Tuesday we went to the amazing chocolate place again, to pick up a few things for the dessert tonight. We also got a couple of things to tide us over until Thursday evening. From there we went on another 25 kilometers or so to the quite sizeable town of Villeneuve-sur-Lot (meaning the town of Villeneuve on the Lot River). We had spent an afternoon their a couple of years ago and liked the feel. We didn’t really do much, but we did sit and watch the lunchtime crowd bustle about and, of course, had a little wine

Tuesday evening we took Ann to one of our favorite restaurants, La Récreation. It is in a tiny little village and sits in the old, abandoned schoolhouse. It is one of those places that you don’t go to every night, but just for special occasions. It is a prix-fixe menu (4 courses) at 35 euros. It is now under new ownership and Polley and I had to confess to each other, that while it is good, it has lost something both in terms of food and atmosphere. It was a bit of a disappointment. Too bad! Wednesday morning we were up bright and early as Ann offered to take us into Cahors, the main town, about 30 kilometers away. It is a charming city and am sorry that we have not given it more attention. There are some wonderful old buildings

That sort of reveal themselves as a kind of surprise as you pass from one narrow alleyway to another

We enjoyed a Grande Crème in a local café and wandered past one of several churches in the town

Polley and Ann did some shopping and Polley got yet another scarf and a very cool wool jacket. Ann bought me a wonderful neon yellow scarf to go with my lime green walking cap. I will try to get a picture in the near future. We found a quite wonderful dog fountain

And an amazing clock

That works on the pin-ball principle. Balls roll down and move along

and become the momentum for the hands of the clock. While it had been cloudy on the drive over, the sun eventually made its way out and we took advantage of that to wander down to the Lot River which runs through the town

After a lovely lunch on the main street, Ann took us by the scenic route home and we were fortunate enough to see one of the grape harvesting machines in action. The vines have been loaded every since we arrived and we kept anticipating the harvest would begin. Yesterday, with warm conditions, it seems to have gotten underway. The tractor pulls the harvesting machine down the vines

And the machine has some sort of soft, combed cylinders that gently shake the grapes from the vine.

It is quite quick and seems very effective. Apparently for some of the higher-end wines, they are still picked by hand. But with the acres and acres of vineyards, that much have been a huge effort that now has given way to a more efficient method. Quite fascinating and we stood and watch this farmer for nearly half an hour as he made his way up one string of vines and down another. It was a long day and Polley and I found ourselves worn out. We did a bit of shopping for tonight’s dinner, grabbed a quick meal at the wine bar and turned in. Just two more days in Puy L’Eveque.