We slept soundly, able to leave the window open instead of enduring with the aircon running. We enjoyed a late, leisurely breakfast including fresh pain au chocolate and apple turnover-type things, as well fresh baguette with butter and marmalade, topped off with tea/coffee as preferred. With approval from my parents and the boys, we left them all behind, and JD and I drove off to explore a little of the countryside.
In Australia, away from the cities, you're used to driving a minimum of half an hour between towns, and in between is just flat farmland. There might be the odd low hill from a millenia-extinct volcano, but the land is flat and old; ribboned with wide roads, speckled with the odd farmhouse, occasionally a century old, but often newer.
In New Zealand, away from the cities, the are some areas of flat land, mostly alluvial plains, and elsewhere it's all sharp, angry hills and mountains, lush with trees and plant life. Roads turn sharply, with a new vista at each corner.
This part of France is something else again - it had the heaving hills and valleys of NZ but softened and worn down, with a patina of age, the ferocity completely gone from them. The limestone country here is dry, as all water immediately seeps down far below the surface. Structures - houses, barns, dovecotes, towers - are centuries, if not millenia, old; their thick stone walls that have more than stood the test of time. The tile or split stone rooves may have tumbled in or gone completely, but the two-foot thick walls remain resolute. Towns, villages, hamlets, locations that don't even warrant a name, flow from one to another; Biars-sur-Cere abuts Bretenoux, which is turn is only a few kilometres from the next major town, and there is rarely more than half a km where you don't see some kind of structure, if not several houses grouped together.
Unfortunately, until I work out how to do accents, my posts about this specific region of France are likely to be a little confusing. [Now edited to add them.]The river that runs along the bottom of the valley is the Cère (pronounced like the first syllable of Sarah). The towns along here are mostly '-sur-Cère': Gagnac, Biars. We went a little further on to a town, around 20km from where we're staying, called St Céré (pronounced like Cherie, but with an S not a Sh).
After wandering about the town, buying a couple of postcards, wandering into the old stone church (Norman on the outside, gothic-lite on the inside), and found some lunch at a restaurant on the edge of the market square. We'd both had more than enough bread and pasta for the time being and chose this restaurant because it offered a number of salads, either entree or main course sized. It turns out the two we chose are specialties of the region.
My Salade du Quercy comprised lettuce, tomatoes, half a drumstick of duck, some smoked duck meat, a cheese-on-toast of the local Rocamadour cheese, some cubed fried potatoes, a slice of foie gras, and some confit gesiers (gizzards, we think). About a third salad, a quarter spuddly cubes, and the rest being a range of specialty meaty things. I apologise that I did not even think to take a photo of my meal until after I was well into it.
JD had the Salade gourmande, being lettuce, tomatoes, chevre toasts, smoked duck, ravioli with chevre and tomato, and some other bits that fell off my photo of the menu. We plan to make the chevre toasts (a round of chevre, laid on a square of puff pastry, sprinkled with rosemary, then the corners of the pastry square folded over the cheese so they almost meet, then baked in an oven until delicious) for dinner in the next day or two.
On the way back from St-Cere, we stopped at the supermarket (Leclerc) in Biars to pick up some bits and pieces for our turn for dinner. Tonight, we made BLT risotto - bacon (speck), leeks, and (oven-dried) tomatoes, plus some tomato and basil bruschetta, finishing with some more of Dad's cheeses, including some whiffy but yummy Rocamadour cheese (rounds of goats milk cheese, each around 5cm/2" across, perhaps 0.5cm high, runny inside with a light crust on the outside).
In Australia, away from the cities, you're used to driving a minimum of half an hour between towns, and in between is just flat farmland. There might be the odd low hill from a millenia-extinct volcano, but the land is flat and old; ribboned with wide roads, speckled with the odd farmhouse, occasionally a century old, but often newer.
In New Zealand, away from the cities, the are some areas of flat land, mostly alluvial plains, and elsewhere it's all sharp, angry hills and mountains, lush with trees and plant life. Roads turn sharply, with a new vista at each corner.
This part of France is something else again - it had the heaving hills and valleys of NZ but softened and worn down, with a patina of age, the ferocity completely gone from them. The limestone country here is dry, as all water immediately seeps down far below the surface. Structures - houses, barns, dovecotes, towers - are centuries, if not millenia, old; their thick stone walls that have more than stood the test of time. The tile or split stone rooves may have tumbled in or gone completely, but the two-foot thick walls remain resolute. Towns, villages, hamlets, locations that don't even warrant a name, flow from one to another; Biars-sur-Cere abuts Bretenoux, which is turn is only a few kilometres from the next major town, and there is rarely more than half a km where you don't see some kind of structure, if not several houses grouped together.
Unfortunately, until I work out how to do accents, my posts about this specific region of France are likely to be a little confusing. [Now edited to add them.]The river that runs along the bottom of the valley is the Cère (pronounced like the first syllable of Sarah). The towns along here are mostly '-sur-Cère': Gagnac, Biars. We went a little further on to a town, around 20km from where we're staying, called St Céré (pronounced like Cherie, but with an S not a Sh).
After wandering about the town, buying a couple of postcards, wandering into the old stone church (Norman on the outside, gothic-lite on the inside), and found some lunch at a restaurant on the edge of the market square. We'd both had more than enough bread and pasta for the time being and chose this restaurant because it offered a number of salads, either entree or main course sized. It turns out the two we chose are specialties of the region.
My Salade du Quercy comprised lettuce, tomatoes, half a drumstick of duck, some smoked duck meat, a cheese-on-toast of the local Rocamadour cheese, some cubed fried potatoes, a slice of foie gras, and some confit gesiers (gizzards, we think). About a third salad, a quarter spuddly cubes, and the rest being a range of specialty meaty things. I apologise that I did not even think to take a photo of my meal until after I was well into it.
JD had the Salade gourmande, being lettuce, tomatoes, chevre toasts, smoked duck, ravioli with chevre and tomato, and some other bits that fell off my photo of the menu. We plan to make the chevre toasts (a round of chevre, laid on a square of puff pastry, sprinkled with rosemary, then the corners of the pastry square folded over the cheese so they almost meet, then baked in an oven until delicious) for dinner in the next day or two.
On the way back from St-Cere, we stopped at the supermarket (Leclerc) in Biars to pick up some bits and pieces for our turn for dinner. Tonight, we made BLT risotto - bacon (speck), leeks, and (oven-dried) tomatoes, plus some tomato and basil bruschetta, finishing with some more of Dad's cheeses, including some whiffy but yummy Rocamadour cheese (rounds of goats milk cheese, each around 5cm/2" across, perhaps 0.5cm high, runny inside with a light crust on the outside).
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