Cahors - Pont de Valentre
The
Lot...
W e are located in the beautiful département of the Lot (46) &
which is made up of gently rolling wooded hills and numerous rivers, including
the Dordogne, Lot & Bleu.
The Lot is based on the northern part of the old royal province of the Quercy
– le Haut Quercy. It is sharply divided into two types of area: at
the centre the Causse, which dominates and gives the landscape its distinctive
character; around this rocky centre the gentler hills and valleys of the
Quercy Blanc, the Bouriane to the west and in the north east the not so
gentle hills and valleys of the Ségala.
Quite spectacularly beautiful are the cliff-lined river valleys: the Lot,
the Dordogne, the Célé, the Alzou, the Ouysse and the Vers.
Over millions of years they have carved their way through the limestone
plateau of the Causse to form mini Grand Canyons.
Puy
L'Eveque
On a practical level, the nearest town is Gourdon - just a short drive away, which has 3 major supermarkets, including Intermarché, Casino, & LeaderPrice (great value!), restaurants, bars, a cinema and brocantes
Gourdon
& the Bouriane
Gourdon lies in the Bouriane. The area is a complete contrast to the Causse.
The countryside becomes more domesticated, a sort of climatically superior
south west of England – trees and hills and valleys. It gently introduces
the Périgord, the Dordogne, the neighbouring département.
Sarlat is not far.
The town of Gourdon is attractive, with the main street built in a circle
where the ramparts used to be. The castle has long since been dismantled
but in the middle there is a cluster of attractive old medieval streets.
Nearby is the "plan d'eau" swimming lake called "ecoute s'il
pleut", where as well as having a relaxing swim, you can fish or just
enjoy a bottle of wine.
Market
Days
The French word marché
means food market. Foire indicates the whole shooting match: everything
you could possibly want – or more often not want – from clothes
through plastic flowers to patent devices for every conceivable use, plus
the usual food market. A farmers’ market is a marché des producteurs
and there are quite a few in July and August.
Here
is a selection of the more interesting ones..
Assier – every Tuesday morning, the sheep market,
rallying point for the modern sheep-farming fraternity. Not folksy but interesting
- get there early.
Cahors – picture-book market in front of the cathedral
every Wednesday and Saturday morning. It is wonderful to sit in the cathedral
and cool down after the blazing summer heat outside. Icing on the cake is
provided when the very talented organist does his rehearsal for Sunday.
The building trembles.
Gourdon – every Tuesday and Saturday morning. The
foire, every first and third Tuesday in the month, occupies the whole circular
road round this hilltop town, where the ramparts once stood, overlooking
the surrounding countryside – curious and picturesque.
Gramat – every Tuesday and Friday morning. There
is a better-than-average open-air antiques fair every mid August. The wool
market is still held here every year but wool now fetches so little money
that the farmers would like to breed a wool-free sheep.
Labastide Murat – marché and small foire every
second Monday in the month except when it falls on a Bank Holiday when it
moves to Tuesday. Locals always seem to know whether a month has four Mondays
or five. For the rest of us it is a bit like working out the date of Easter.
Very cosy in this pretty old town where everyone knows everyone. Endless
handshaking. Good farmers’ market every Sunday morning in July and
August – sometimes with free apéritif and entertainment provided
by a grateful taxpayer.
Lalbenque – the famous truffle market is held here
every Tuesday afternoon from mid-December until February. The market opens
on the dot of two o’clock and for the most part lasts just a few minutes.
Everything is over by three. The preliminary negotiations and apéritifs
last hours as do the lunches and postprandial discussions. Some of the top
foie gras houses entertain clients here. It is quite a sight to see the
favoured lunchers totter out with bursting buttons, flushed faces and ties
adrift, just in time to see the market. Console yourself with the thought
that while you have not had the ultimate free lunch, you will certainly
live longer than those who have. If you want lunch in a local restaurant
on market day, book ahead.
Livernon – not much of a market here but a good second
hand saleroom – Latapie, a few yards from the post office. A local
institution.
Martel – Wednesday and Saturday - a good way to see
this lovely old town.
Saint Germain du Bel Air – Friday morning. Excellent
farmers’ market on Sunday mornings – marché des producteurs
- in July and August. Good for children as there are different displays
every week – sheep shearing, glass blowing, horse-shoeing et al.
Souillac – Friday morning. Always a good market but
it is even better since the motorway has diverted the traffic from the town
centre.
River
canoeing
Canoes can be hired at a cost of around 20 Euro per day, on both
the Dordogne & Lot rivers, and distances vary from 5-25 km, witha bus
back to your starting point.
Beynac - la Dordogne
Mountain biking
Mountain bikes can be hired locally, to explore the numerous country
lanes, and off-road tracks in the Dordogne river valley.
Fishing
Permits can be bought locally, as can bait & any tackle needed,
& there are numerous lakes & rivers with some superb fishing spots.
Horse riding
Within 10 minutes walk is an equestrian centre, who cater for all
levels of ability from beginners to experienced, with some fine horses &
ponies for smaller children.
Wine
tasting
The vineyards are many in this region, with one of the best being
the up and coming Cahors red and Figeac St. Emilion.
Many "vignerons" are closeby
Lot
wines
The Cahors vineyard straddles the river Lot for 50 kilometres
running east to west until it joins the river Garonne and the port of its
ancient rival Bordeaux. The wine départements of South West France
all reflect the importance of their rivers and the vineyards associated
with them. The Dordogne for Bergerac in the North; the Aveyron for Marcillac;
the river Tarn to the south for Gaillac; the river Garonne itself for Fronton
and the Bordeaux satellites of the Gers.
Wines were grown in the Cahors/Quercy region as early as the Gallo-Roman
era. By the middle of the XIIc Henry Plantagenet married the ex-Queen of
France. The marriage, and more particularly the dowry that Aliénor
of Aquitaine brought with her, enabled south-west wine merchants to strengthen
commercial ties with her husband’s kingdom across the Channel. In
fact, by the first half of the XIVc, wines from Quercy represented half
of all wine shipments from Bordeaux.
The development of the Quercy vineyards over the next 500 years followed
very much the ups and downs of French agricultural and economic life. With
no controls to speak of, planting was indiscriminate, quality was, to say
the least, varied and the wine resembled little what we would recognise
today. Cahors did however have a saving grace in the high calibre of its
commonly used grape variety: the auxerrois (also called cot, or malbec,
where it is the third largest grape variety planted in Argentina). Representing
a minimum of 70% of the blend, which is usually rounded out with the mellowness
of merlot, it is this noble variety which gives Cahors its laurels.
Côteaux de Quercy
Cahors is not the only type of wine produced in the Lot. On the southern
border of the département, and flowing over into the Tarn and Garonne,
lies the more modest vineyard of the VDQS Côteaux du Quercy. Here
are 500 hectares, compared with the current 4,400 in Cahors, of a thriving,
up-and-coming wine which until recently (1999) was a simple Vin du Pays.
Here, they do not use much at all of the
auxerrois grape, but rather specialise in a blend which uses up to 60% cabernet
franc, mixed with tannat, gamay or merlot. As in Cahors, the accent is on
quality. Producers have been identifying the best areas of land, and grubbing
up inferior grape varieties. There are some 30 producers, including three
cooperatives. A judicious selection will find some attractive wines and
attractive prices.
Cahors was unable to get in on the act when the first appellations were
granted in 1935. The intermediate VDQS status was however awarded in 1951,
which defined the geographical limits of the vineyard. With a certain amount
of help from one Georges Pompidou, native of Cajarc, President of France
in 1969, Cahors achieved full appellation status in 1971.
Gastronomy
The Lot is well known for the excellent quality of its food. Here you will
find all the classic specialties of the south west plus some more which
are peculiar to
the region.
Some typical dishes
Soup – in the Lot no meal is complete unless it starts
with soup, particularly broad bean soup – soupe de fèves –
and tourain. Tourain is classically an onion soup, the same onion soup which
is served at dawn to newly-weds whether they like it or not on the first
morning of their married life.
Brandade de morue – made from salted cod, it is a
very old recipe a bit in the style of a kedgeree. It dates back to the days
when salted fish was brought up from the sea on the Lot or the Dordogne.
It should be fried gently in walnut oil.
Poule farcie – chicken filled with a stuffing of
bread, sausage meat, chicken liver, bacon and an egg and cooked in a bouillon
(stock) of leeks, carrots, celery, turnips and onion.
Tourtière aux salsifis – chicken pie with
salsify.
Petit salé with mique – salt pork and a sort
of duff - very filling. Mique is sometimes known as far levé.
L’agneau du Quercy – naturally in a sheep farming
area – roast lamb.
Milha or millassou – pumpkin and cornmeal cake with raisins.
Citrouille - pumpkin - pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie are
great favourites in winter.
Melon du Quercy – perhaps surprisingly, melons grow
quite well here even at 400 metres on the Causse where late frosts and drought
are a problem.
Gariguettes – the finest strawberries in France from
the Lot valley – very early in the season.
Fouace – the Easter cake of the area, known as the
Coq de Pâques - a type of brioche.
Merveille – a sort of dry donut made of batter, cooked
in oil and then coated with sugar.
Cheese
Rocamadour is the appellation controlée goat cheese made around the
famous village of the same name. It is also generally known by its more
plebeian name cabécou.
Walnuts
At one time every farmhouse had its own walnut trees. The walnuts were turned
into oil at the local mills. Some was used for cooking but mostly as fuel
for oil lamps. There is a walnut mill still operating just outside Martel.
Walnut wine is still made by many housewives. Walnut oil is excellent for
salads.
Truffles
The black diamond is found all over the Lot and there is a well known truffle
market at Lalbenque to the south of Cahors which operates during the season
from November to February or March. After being neglected by the exponents
of modern agriculture for some years it is being taken more seriously again
today as farmers feel the pinch.
Festival
dates
June 28 Cazals Contemporary dance
July 10-13 Assier Jazz concerts
July14,15 Montcuq Musical show
July 15-19 Cahors Blues festival
July 15-20 Souillac Festival ‘Sim Copans’ Souillac
en jazz
July 16 Gramat ‘Les musicales du Causse de Gramat’
classical concert
July 18 Montcuq Scottish dance and music
July 19-26 Rocamadour Classical music, jazz, poetry, literature
July 21-25 Gourdon ‘Rencontres estivales’chamber
music by the
Conservatoire national de Paris
July 25-27 Cajarc Africajarc afric’festival
July 27-August 15 Saint Cyprien Classical music (piano,
guitar)
July 28-31 Prayssac World folk festival: Oudmourtia, Argentina,
Kazakhstan, Mexico
August 1-8 Belaye ‘Rencontres de violoncelle’
Cello concerts
August 1,15 Gramat ‘Les musicales du Causse de Gramat’
classical concert
August 2,3 Gourdon Medieval fête
August 2 -16 Saint Céré and Haut Quercy Music
festival, baroque, string
quartets etc, Mozart, Stravinski, Brahms, Haydn, Offenbach, Weill...
August 23-30 Gindou Rencontres du Cinéma de Gindou
dedicated this year to
Algerian films (discussions, screenings of recent and old short and
feature films, documentaries...)
September 27, 28 Rocamadour Les montgolfiades: European
hot-air balloon meet
October 11 Gramat ‘Les musicales du Causse de Gramat’
classical concert
Prehistory & Caves
Perhaps the most famous of caves are the nearby Grottes de Lascaux and even
nearer grottes de Cougnac, but here are many others to visit...
Just off the Vallée of the Célé, three kilometres above
Cabreret, is the Grotte de Pech-Merle, one of the finest prehistoric sites
in France. The paintings are as remarkable as Lascaux but here you can see
them in the original. In 1922, two intrepid 14-year-old boys wormed their
way down a tunnel in the rock and discovered this wonderful collection of
cave paintings unseen for 200 centuries. Perhaps the most uncanny vestiges
of prehistoric man are the fossilised foot prints in the clay.
A
few kilometres from Rocamadour and Gramat is the giant Gouffre de Padirac.
By any standards it is an impressive hole in the ground, 77 metres deep
and 99 metres in circumference. It is one of the great geological curiosities
of France.
Originally it was a huge vaulted cavern beneath the surface of the Causse.
Then the roof of the cavern collapsed and revealed this extraordinary geological
feature.
Access is by staircase or lift to the bottom of the gouffre. Then there
is a walk of several hundred yards along a tunnel to an underground river.
After that the journey is by boat to visit the cavern known as the Grande
Dôme, which is 91 metres from top to bottom. Here it is possible to
see what the gouffre itself looked like before it was open to the sky. The
cavern is of great interest for its remarkable crystalline formations built
up over thousands of years.
Historic
Chateaux & monuments
Beautiful ancient towns such as the renowned 12th century Rocamodour, &
the famous prehistoric caves at Lascaux.
Chateau Belcastel
Chateau de Commarque
Cahors
They say that Cahors is the first real town of the south with its typical
red brick buildings and its confused medieval street pattern. There are
cafés on the main street, with tables and chairs on the pavement
and there is always somebody who seems to have time to sit and stare and
watch the world go by.
They say that Cahors is the first real town of the south with its typical
red brick buildings and its confused medieval street pattern. There are
cafés on the main street, with tables and chairs on the pavement
and there is always somebody who seems to have time to sit and stare and
watch the world go by.
The Cathedral St Étienne with its rare double-domed roof. The Pont
Valentré over the Lot is rightly famous, one of the finest examples
of medieval military architecture in France. Do not forget to walk across
it and turn left to find the Fontaine de la Chartreuse - 200 yards or so
on your right. This spring surges out of the rock from 750 metres below
ground. It has been in use since the time of the Romans and probably before.
If you are there on a Wednesday or a Saturday the picturesque market, in
the Place in front of the cathedral, is everything we imagine a French provincial
market ought to be.
The Bibiliothèque Municipale in the Place Gambetta is a masterpiece
of the wood workers’ art, worthy of an Oxford college, with endless
rows of shelves, beautiful galleries and spiral staircases. Just outside
is the statue of Gambetta, Cahors’ most famous son, the one-eyed lawyer
who escaped in a hot-air balloon from the siege of Paris to continue the
fight in the south during the Franco-Prussian War.
Souillac
and the Dordogne
Souillac was once an important river port on the Dordogne. In medieval
times and for many centuries it was much easier to move goods by river than
by road. Souillac was the point from which imported goods were delivered
all over the surrounding area and from which exports went out to the rest
of the world.
The river boatmen took goods right down to the sea at Bordeaux. Today it
is very easy to hire a canoe and cruise down the river in summer from Gluges
to Souillac. You leave your car at the starting point and they drive you
back – exhausted- at the end of the day. It is the best way to see
the wonderful river valley scenery and makes a marvellous day out. You can
picnic on the banks of the river and swim alongside your canoe as it drifts
along with the current - all most agreeable. As it is downstream all the
way it can be undertaken by the least nautical but you have to be able to
swim.
Among the streets of the town you will find the fine old abbey church of
St Marie built in the XIIIc by the monks who drained the river valley here.
Next door is the rather different Musée de l’Automate, which
is rightly a favourite with children. All sorts of rare mechanical toys
are on display. The market on Fridays is also very good.
Since the recent opening of the Autoroute 20 the town has benefited from
the great reduction in traffic which used to pass through on the RN20.
Rocamadour
10 kms to the west of Gramat is the famous village, abbey and château
of Rocamadour, one of the great tourist sites of France and the second most
visited after Mont St Michel.
Events and Markets The medieval village clings to the almost perpendicular
side of the valley. Three quarters of the way up the cliff is the abbey
and on top is the castle. The very old and beautifully-preserved village
has great charm but is quite commercial. However, only the most insensitive
will fail to be impressed by the atmosphere of deep spirituality which pervades
the religious buildings above.
For 900 years it has been a place of pilgrimage celebrating the Virgin Mary.
The black virgin is in the chapel. It was probably originally brought into
sudden prominence as the Catholic answer to the appeal of Catharism.
The abbey and the main street are linked by a long staircase which the very
devout still climb on their knees. The English King Henry II came here to
repent for the murder of Thomas à Beckett. His son pillaged it for
money to pay his soldiers. He died shortly afterwards in nearby Martel –
the judgement of God? The battlements of the castle, for those who are not
afraid of heights, are sensational and seem to hang over the main street
of the village below.
12th century Rocamadour
Sarlat in the evening
The
Causse and the Parc Régional
The rocky expanse of the Causses de Martel, de Gramat and Limogne which
dominate much of the Lot are host to a rich variety of flora and fauna.
To appreciate them it is necessary to leave the main roads, which naturally
follow the most level ground.
St Cirq Lapopie There are all sorts of strange rock formations to find with
many very deep holes, some of them hundreds of metres, known as igues. The
best known area is the Forêt de la Braunhie – pronounced Brogne
in the triangle of land 40 kilometres west of Figeac between the villages
of Fontanes du Causse, Quissac and Caniac du Causse, with its beautiful
but tiny XIIc crypt. It is not really a forest at all but some extremely
inhospitable terrain which was once farmed intensively and is now just used
for rough sheep grazing.
Leave the footpaths, you will find the typical cloups – the deep hollows
created in the limestone plateau by millions of years of rain draining through
a weak spot in the rock. The rich soil collected in the bottom was once
used to grow hemp – for cloth rather than hallucinations. Often the
‘Cotswold’ protective, circular, dry-stone wall surrounding
the cultivated area is still intact. The contrast with the rocky grazing
all around is strange.
Scattered about are the little shelters, known as cazel or garriotte, once
used by shepherds, often young children, guarding the flocks of sheep. They
look like igloos made of slabs of rock. Of particular interest are the rare
dragonflies and the 30 or so different types of orchid. In February and
March in some parts there are thousands of wild daffodils.