Tuesday evening, May 26, 2015
Bonjour!
We are now cozily ensconced in L’Esplanade in Domme,
France. We have room #15, and it
actually has a balcony and overlooks the Dordogne River. It is incredibly beautiful here, and I’ve
always wanted to stay here! (Jay, Tommy, Brenda & Chris – it is the largish
hotel right on the overlook in Domme,
just down the street from the hospital and parking!)
But to finish out yesterday’s blog: I am posting the photos
from our fabulous dinner last night.
Unfortunately, we can’t remember the specific names of some of the
dishes – R suggests we take along our little notebook and pen when we go to
dinner to note them down, but I’ve done the best I can!
We got home around 10:30-11 p.m. last night, and
it had started to sprinkle, just a little.
 |
| Me and the dolmen! |
And when we woke up this morning, the ground was wet and the sky was
very overcast and blustery.
Le 1837 hotel was really
incredible.
The bed was SO comfortable,
I honestly don’t remember anything from the time I closed my eyes until
somewhere around 6 a.m. this morning!
Nathalie
had brought us some wonderful croissants, bread and cookies, which we had for
breakfast.
(The hotel does breakfast,
but we really didn’t feel the need to have anything else!)
I also needed to do some serious catching up
on the blog – and at least let people know that we arrived safely in
France!
 |
I have found my house...
|
 |
The beautiful Tarn river
|
 |
One of the stunning villages of France
|
So, I blogged, and then Robert downloaded pictures, and
finally, I put the two parts together.
Again, more photos than words, but the Saint-Affrique area is really beautiful, and if a picture is worth
a thousand words, just think how many words I can find in 20+ pictures or
so! We were finally ready to go about 9
a.m. Packed up the car (and now that we’re
in France, we are planning on sending a box or so home – all our travel books
and maps for Italy and Sardinia, etc. – and I think I must have pulled out 15
lbs. worth of stuff to send home) and the suitcases are much lighter for some
reason! Duh…The French Poste is really wonderful. They have boxes like we do in the U.S. – on the
“if it fits, it ships” concept. The
boxes usually then make it back to Tucson long before we ever get there and it
certainly makes schlepping the suitcases that much easier!
 |
Me on our balcony!
|
 |
View from balcony looking left
|
 |
View from balcony looking right
|
 |
And -- surprise! Balcony view looking straight ahead!
|
Robert and Emmy were trying to find a good route to drive to
Domme, and we had only gone a
kilometer or so out of town, when voila,
there was a sign for a dolmen! (A dolmen
is a prehistoric megalithic structure made from stone, usually with standing
stone slaps for sides and then a larger stone slap across the stop – sorta like
stone hedge in places.) And while we saw a menhir on Sardinia, we were
currently dolmen-less on this trip. So,
up a side road, and then followed the sign into a field just off the side of
the road. Really neat! Especially when you think about how long that
thing has actually been “standing” there!
Back on the road, heading toward Rodez as our first checkpoint, and where we picked up some
lunch. It’s a big city, but from a
distance, their cathedral sits up on a promenade overlooking the town; really
impressive! And, while we didn’t make it
to the center of town, we did enjoy the outskirts and environs. It took us about 5 hours to get to Domme (that includes lunch stop) and
honestly, while only some of the roads were designed as “scenic” we didn’t have
a non-scenic moment all day! Wow! R keeps talking about the lucky person who
plots out the routes of the Tour de
France each year … he REALLY wants that job! From Rodez,
we worked out way towards Gourdon, and reach there, R decided on some REALLY
tiny roads to get to Domme. They were beautiful, all of them, and the
driving was wonderful! We got to Hotel L’Esplanade about 2:30 p.m. and
were shown to our room – again, with that view down the Dordogne – I knew I was
right staying here! We left the car in
the public parking lot down the street, and brought our much lighter luggage to
the hotel. We are in a wing by
ourselves, which is great fun – it’s up one flight of stairs, then down a long
hallway and down a half-flight of stairs and then, voila! Our room!
Settled in, and decided to go downstairs for a glass of
wine.
We figured today would exploring
Domme, and then we’re thinking of dividing the days into: (1) Cognac and Armagnac;
(2) decorated caves; (3) towns in the area.
(Although honestly, being this close to
Castelnaud and their TREBUCHET, I’m not sure that Robert can resist
going back … he still wants one for our backyard, but I keep telling him our
CCR’s don’t allow them!)
 |
| R on the hotel's patio |
 |
| That's our balcony, middle of photo! |
 |
| Closer view of our balcony! |
After the wine,
we took a walk first through the church across the street (dating from the 1600’s)
and then along the main street, looking at “stuff” in the various shops.
(As R says, now that we’re on the verge of
unloading stuff into postal boxes destined for the U.S., there is LOTS of room
for new stuff!)
I did succumb to the
French version of stracciatella, and while it was OK overall, it certainly wasn’t
Italian, even though it was homemade!
 |
Close up of church altar
|
I am blogging, and R is napping, and after
going television-less for the past almost four weeks (we had TV’s except for in
Lucca, but no inclination to watch, and we very much enjoyed the silence!)
(The only problem that we remember from the
year we went to the French Open – the French TV station is
VERY artistic, and keeps doing funny things to the camera,
et. al.
We wish they wouldn’t, but hey, it’s their tournament!)
So, all in all, I think I’m about as
caught-up as I can be blog wise!
 |
| View from our bathroom window! |
I’ve
got the French Open on TV – in French, of course!
More to come after dinner!
Lots of love!
m
xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment