Village etape, purple flowers, hay bales, and a pig farmer from England

Day 16 France 2012

We had a grand send-off from Sarlat as we were driving out of town when we heard a roaring noise overhead, and there was a trio of jets sending out contrails of red, white, and blue smoke.  The trio was led by a lone jet.  The noise was so loud that we both ducked in the car since it sounded like they were right on top of us.  Of course, they were long gone by the time I could get the camera out.

As we drove north, we encountered lots of hills with walnut groves and cornfields.  We came across a small field with literally hundreds of ducks under some walnut trees.  We decided that the corn in this area is used to feed the ducks and geese that are grown for foie gras.

In the small village of Paulin, we saw this castle.

We kept seeing signs about towns labeled as “Village Etape.”  We had no clue what they were, so decided to stop in one, go to the tourist office and ask.  We found out that meant that these villages were perfect tourist towns with places to stay, eat, and activities for entertainment.  This particular Village Etape had a beautiful church right on the town square with a WWI memorial in front that just brought tears to my eyes.  There were 89 names on the memorial and were listed as young men who died for France.  The WWII memorial nearby only had 11 names on it.  It really brought home how the population of young men was devastated by WWI.  

The tourist bureau gave us info on one of the “Beau Villages” that was just down the road, so we drove there.  There was a castle across a little river and an ancient church.  The stone steps inside the church had been worn down from all the worshipers over the centuries.  There was a tomb of someone who had been killed during the Crusades in 1266.  There was an effigy over the tomb and I thought it was a woman because it looked like the person was wearing a dress.  It was only after I read the plaque that I realized it was a man.  The basement of the church had paintings on the ceiling that reminded us of the cave paintings we saw in Turkey.

There was a big sign by the road outside Limoges saying that this was Limousine cattle country, and we saw several herds of them.

Lots of towns in this area end in the letters AC:  Parnac, Rilhac, Ambazac, Bonnac, Margnac.

We saw purple flowers in clusters all along the big highway A-20.  We did not see the red poppies any more, just these purple flowers that looked like the lupines that we saw in Nova Scotia.  They had tall spikes covered with flowers.  I wanted to get a photo of them, but we could not stop on the big highway, and when we finally got off onto smaller roads, the purple flowers had disappeared.  I was determined to get a photo, so we looked and looked for them and finally spotted a few.  Leon pulled off to let me get a photo and we realized that close up, the flowers are blue!  From a distance they all looked purple.  There were some pink ones that were a little different, so I got a photo of them, too. 

We have enjoyed seeing all of the agricultural land here, and got a chuckle out of these fields with their bales of hay. We had seen the bales that looked like marshmallows before, but had not seen the black and white striped ones. 

Helen got us to our little B&B way out in the country.  Our hosts were preparing dinner for us, and it was fabulous.  There was another couple staying there, and they ate with us.  They have a vacation home in France but live in Northern England, and the husband is a pig farmer.  He has about 4,000 sows and raises free range pigs.  He said it is a niche market, and his pork is sold to high end stores.  He said that there are large estates nearby, and he leases their farmland on a crop rotation basis.  It was really interesting to learn all about his farming operation. 

 Leon enjoying a little vino before dinner.

This is the hot goat cheese salad we had for our entree.

Sausage stuffed chicken with a white wine sauce and vegetables for our main course.

Raspberry sherbet on a brownie swimming in vanilla sauce with fresh raspberries for dessert.

Some observations:  There is very little trash on the streets, highways, and roads here.  Houses have working shutters that they close in the heat of the day.  Nobody has screens on their windows.  France does not have washcloths in bathrooms no matter where you are.  European credit cards have chips in them, but American credit cards have magnetic strips that do not work in lots of places.  The console in our car has an AC vent in the bottom that cools our drinks…it is also large enough to hold two 2-liter bottles of water, 2 sandwiches on baguettes, 2 canned drinks, Leon’s sunglasses, and our binoculars!