Friday, July 24

So today we decided to go somewhere, and since we've been to all the chateaux around here, and I didn't really want to go to another prehistoric cave, and I NEVER want to visit a gorge, we ended up going to Figeac, which is, according to the guidebooks, interesting. The guy who discovered the Rosetta stone came from Figeac. The real one is in the British Museum, of course (they stole almost everything), but there is a reconstruction that is HUGE in Figeac. It's a trek from here, though, and by the time we got there, it was lunch time and I was demanding food. Our first impression, though, was that it looked like Bergerac. It isn't like Bergerac. Much more interesting.

So the Tourist Office is 13th century, and just

behind it is a shop selling regional products

, e.g., foie gras, etc.

I realize the positioning of these photos is pretty bad, but hey, I'm doing the best I can.

So then we went (as I mentioned earlier) in search of food (and drink, at this point, as I have lost my green water bottle with the good lid). We ended up at a place called the Sphinx, where the menu looked interesting, and we could eat in the old market place. After a bit of a wait, however, which we spent thus:

We both had the salmon tartare (with both raw fresh and smoked salmon), seasoned with basil and olive oil, and served on a salad, for a first course. For the second course I had the tuna (overcooked), and phil had the sausage, both served with saffron rice garnished with some veg. A pichet (small jug) of the local red wine, plus some H2O. For dessert he had the lemon tarte, and I had sorbet cassis, to which I am addicted. And then coffee. And time for a nap, except we had to tour the town. So we followed the indicted circuit, except we went up to the top to the Eglise St. Puy first, as then we were able to basically go down hill. All the buildings (at least many, many of the old ones) seemed to have three or four floors (ground floor, two or three upper floors for living) and then a top open but roofed terrace. I've seen those before but never sort of all over a town. And clearly original. Don't know whether they were used originally for eating out when the weather was warm, or what. It appears that people eat in them now, and also use them to dry laundry, etc.

The town started out as an abbey town, with the Abbaye de Sainte Saveur as the cornerstone. Huge church. Took 300 years to build. Building styles clearly changed while they were building it.

I got tired. Demanded that we leave.

After we got home, it became clear that we would have to eat something for dinner, so cheese (brie, au lait cru, of course), bread, heirloom tomatoes, sliced peaches with Armagnac and creme fraiche, the red wine left from last night (Ste. Estephe). Not bad for leftovers.

Lillie