Paris en Route to the Southwest
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| A far view in the Jardin des Plantes,
a public botanical garden just up the street from our hotel. |
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| At the Jardin des Plantes. We had just
an hour to stroll there before catching our train to Gramat. It was
beautiful and worth a longer visit. |
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A
statue in a side yard caught our eye. It shows a sage or philosopher
contemplating an egg. We didn ’t know what
person or story it represents. If you know anything about the subject
of this sculpture, please click the loon above and write to me.
(Never mind the ghost in the photo below. Just pretend you don ’t
see it and it won ’t bother you..) |
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| Very happy to be on our way to the countryside
of the Lot. It was about a 5 1/2-hour journey from Paris by train. |
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The Farm in the Lot
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| This was my home for a week, a small stone cottage
on farmland owned by a retired professor high on the Causse in the
Lot departement of France. I stayed in the house straight ahead. To
the left is a smaller guest cottage. The large house to the right
is the owner’s residence. Click the picture
to see more of the house. |
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| View of the valley from just below the farmhouse.
The stone structure to the right is the barn. Click
the picture for a larger view of this surpassingly peaceful
scene, the first of my three favorite photos taken on the trip. |
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Figeac
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first destination was the medieval town of Figeac, where we picked
up the Avis rental car. It was also an important destination for me
because I wanted to see the birthplace of one of my intellectual heroes,
Jean-François Champollion, the scholar who decoded the Rosetta
Stone. We visited the Champollion museum in Figeac, up that little
alley. |
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| This is where the ducks were supposed to be,
by the pretty Hotel le Pont d’Or on the river Célé,
in the region known in ancient times as Quercy. I know that because
I saw them in a picture on a Figeac website. I even looked up a site
on animal sounds and found out that when ducks quack in French, they
say “coin, coin.” But when I got there, no ducks. |
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| No ducks in that direction either. (You
can click the picture
if you’d like to see what I was imagining.) |
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| Door of the France Télécom office in
Figeac. |
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Highway D940
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View from the roadside on the way to St. Céré.
This is the second of my three favorite shots. Click
the picture to see what this scene looked like just off
there in the distance, without framing or zooming.
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| Main highway, seen from the
spot where I took the roadside photo: looking north toward St. Céré
on D940. The roads are narrow but well maintained and clearly marked. |
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