Engine Grill
At the lunch in town, the food was cooked in this steam engine looking grill. Apparently, one of the people in town collects them. It certainly made the square look festive.
At the lunch in town, the food was cooked in this steam engine looking grill. Apparently, one of the people in town collects them. It certainly made the square look festive.
Not far out of town, along a very nice walk, is St. Sernin du bosc, a church built in 1096 and lovingly restored in the 1990s. Many of the headstones in the cemetery would be fascinating to read if all the writing had not worn away over the years.
There is a retirement home at one end of town and this is the bridge that links the two buildings of the facility. It is at the end of our road, around the corner. If you have to get old, this doesn't seem like a bad place to end up. The only issue is that living in a village on a hill could make getting around a bit tricky.
Here's a great view of Lauzerte, looking up the hill. I love how blue the sky is.
The first evening we were there, this is the view that greeted us out our bedroom window. We were off to a great start.
The landscape is very pastoral and peaceful. So far we've heard a donkey a cow, and many morning doves.
Out our window, we can see sheep. Chris took this picture of them. For a while, we weren't sure if they were real sheep or fake ones put out for tourists, but then one moved.
Lauzerte has a World War I monument. The garden around it is beautiful and Chris took this picture while we were admiring it.
This is another picture of the monument. It's hard to believe such a small town losing so many people.
The back wall of our house is also the bastide defenses. This is a picture Chris took of an overgrown portion at the base of one of the row houses.
This is another picture of rooftops and in the upper right corner is the Hotel du Quercy, a nice restaurant in the village.
I'm not entirely sure what this mosaic is of, but it is at the side of the stairs outside of the pilgram garden and is a nice, surprising feature in town.
We went for a walk around town and were struck by the beauty of the sunsets here. I'm sure sunsets are pretty at home too, but somehow I don't tend to notice them as much.
Chris took this photo of a church we drove to and I love the way the sun reflects off of the stone.
Again, I really like this church picture Chris took, although this is a different church than the previous one. It is in the hamlet of Ste. Juliette.
Yet another sunset over a beautiful countryside. Eventually we'll get tired of taking photos like this, I promise. For now, I just love the view and have to capture it on film...or a memory card.
This is a picture that I believe Chris took of a jumble of old houses. The tile rooftops are everywhere and are very impressive. However, they must be very hard to fix if a leak occurs.
The grapes are very small on the vine since it's so early in the season, but eventually there will be a lot of grapes in the area. This is big wine country and there are many, many hectares of vineyards.
The early bird gets the worm and when Chris walked down to the patisserie for croissants at 6am, he found this spectacular sunrise.
This is the cloister of Moissac Abbey, one of the highlights of our region. The Corinthian columns of the peristyle date back to the 11th century and each have a different design carved in the stone, depicting a story from the bible. It took us over an hour to go all the way around the courtyard as we studied each column's scene.
This is one example of the 11th century columns in the Moissac Abbey cloister. This one is a of an eagle.
Outside of St. Pierre Church, attached to the Moissac Abbey, is a beautiful entryway. This intricately carved porch shows, inexplicably, Jesus with three arms.
16th century wooden statue of the entombment. It's interesting is that all the figures are in medieval garb.
Castelnau is known as the bastide of three windmills. This is one of those, although it is not the one that is still operational. All I can think of when I look at these is Don Quixote riding up to do battle with the "giants." There's something so iconic and picturesque about a windmill.
Here's another picture of the windmill with Chris tilting at it. He's silly. :)
With all the rain we've been having, the snails have been loving it. If you look closely, you can find them all over the trees and bushes. So far we haven't considered them for a meal.
This is a scene from a 16th century Flemish tapestry that hangs in the apse of the Collegiale in Monpezat. It is in remarkable shape and has been well preserved, although the lack of light made photographing the scenes a little difficult.
High above the town of Penne is this crumbling castle perched on a cliff. We drove all over town trying to find the castle ruins mentioned in the guidebook only to realize that all we had to do was to look up.
I'm ready to start baking bread in this medieval kitchen at Brumiciel castle. This castle has been added to over the centuries, starting as a Visigothic stronghold.
This room of Brumiciel castle was full of prehistoric items that dated back 35,000 years. It was phenomenal. This dragon that Chris took a picture of probably wasn't that old.
It's easy to see why Brumiciel castle was built. It's in a perfect spot overlooking the river. Chris took this pic from the ramparts.
Valentre bridge is called the most beautiful bridge in the world. I'm not so sure I'd go that far, but it's an amazing, fortified bridge with imposing towers.
Duck is often the main course at dinners around here. This one just doesn't know enough to flee.
Here is a closer shot of one of the Pont Valentre towers. I don't believe Cahors was even captured, unlike most towns in the area. I guess it was intimidating enough to the English and Protestants. I would have thought that Cahors would be a tempting spot to take over, given its status as banking capital of the region.
Joel and Barbara visited us and we toured Cahors with them. Here's Joel examining the fortified bridge.
This church took over 300 years to build. It was started as a Gothic church, which is the side pictured here, and ended as a Romanesque church. The mix of styles makes it an interesting architectual piece.
The remains of this castle tower over the town of Luzech. This hilltop has been used as a defensive position since Roman times. The medieval castle on the spot is not a tourist spot but is also not closed to the public. I refrained from climbing it, but Chris went up to the top.
Once Chris climbed to the top of the Luzech castle, he took this picture of the view looking back down at Luzech.
This castle in the Aveyron gorge was our next stop. I enjoyed it because it looks exactly like a castle should. As long as you don't see the satellite dish I cropped out of the picture.
This is a view of the beautiful Lot river valley, located about 20 minutes north of our town. It's a beautiful valley known for its wine. and dotted with tiny bastide villages.
We've been taking a lot of sunset pictures because each one is just a little different. This one was taken from our bedroom window. I particularly like the cloud formation.
We had guests over for dinner and used our giant dining room table for the first time. The picture is a little dark since we didn't want the flash, but here we are eating. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture at the beginning of the meal, so you can't see the fantastic duck that Chris made us.
There are two main churches in Toulouse and they had a competition to see who could build the tallest octagonal bell tower. This is the Basilique St. Sernin. It was started in 1096 and finished in 1220. The bell tower was rebuilt in the late 13th century to clinch the title of tallest bell tower in Toulouse.
Built in 1750, this is the Toulouse City Hall. It was created with all the money Toulouse was raking in from its canal. Napoleon thought it was a beautiful building, but didn't think it was tall enough.
This is the cloister of the other main church in Toulouse, the Jacobins. It was created by the Spanish priest Domingo de Guzman in 1206 for the Cathars he had converted. This was the third convent of of the Dominicans in Toulouse. Later, Robespierre and his party would meet in this courtyard. The church lent the name of Jacobins to the French Revolution. This church is also the final resting place of Thomas Aquinas. It later became barracks for Napoleon's artillery and it wasn't until 1885 that the church was finally restored to its former glory. The simplicity of this church is stunningly beautiful.
This is a view of St. Nicolas from across the Garonne river. The church was originally called St. Cyprien until it was rebuilt in 1300 in honor of St. Nicolas, the patron saint of sailors.
The Pont Neuf is Toulouse's oldest bridge, dating back to 1544. It links Gascony on the Left Bank with Languedoc on the right.
