Cahors Sunday

 

 

 

Another great meal and music last night. We had Moules & Frites with white wine and rosé, all with unlimited quantities. The brass band really pumped out a great range of music and over powered the canned music that was playing at the cafe across the square, much more effective than a few nights ago. It was the Kanaris’ (the band) 50th anniversary. The big photo below is from the internet. There are many instruments not in the photo, including 2 sousaphones.

 

 

 

 

The canned music went on well after the official meal/music stopped, but fortunately not as long as a few nights ago. The loud discussions outside our window stopped very quickly when someone from the house across the road had a few loud, stern words. The street is only a bit over 2 car widths wide, so windows are very close to the road.

 

We left Joan & John this morning, sadly, but it was great spending a very relaxed time with them. It is probably fair to say that we all “tasted” a little more wine than we usually do, but it was all for experience, at least that’s our story.

As often happens, we set the GPS for our destination and were distracted. Being a beautiful sunny day, when we took a wrong turn in Agen and saw the canal with boats, we thought we really should have another look (we visited the aqueduct 4 years ago, but we didn’t see any boats). We were amused to see a hire boat almost sideways in the canal before the aqueduct. Not really sure what they were trying to do, but it took them a while to straighten up and move towards the aqueduct. There were lots of boats going both ways, over the aqueduct and through the lock. It was easy to spend time just watching.

The aqueduct is 539 metres long and was opened in 1849. When Rick finally had (almost) enough, we obeyed “her” and got back on the back roads to Cahors.

 

 

Another distraction! We saw a bastide village, Tournon d’Agenais, off to the side and just had to detour. The original bastide town was built here in 1270, but there is very little of the original town left.

 

 

 

 

At the foot of the hill were a lot of wildflowers, the extent looked spectacular.

 

 

This time we let “her” guide us to our destination for the day. We have been to Cahors previously and headed to the area of the 14th century bridge, an attractive area to sit with a coffee. Very peaceful in the shade, looking over the river to the cliffs and downstream to the old bridge. We then walked over the bridge and watched “things not going quite right” with one boat trying to straighten up in the lock. Not sure what was so difficult, suspect the “boat people” were very inexperienced. Of course, the more people watched, the less things went to plan. So easy to spend time just watching.