Autoire
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| My camera was a bit lazy in the mountainside village of Autoire,
even though it is one of the officially designated Les Plus Beaux
Villages de France (Most Beautiful Villages of France), but this picturesque
house against the high limestone cliffs caught my eye. (Another is
Loubressac, which we visited, but I did not take any good pictures
there.) |
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| An excellent dinner of crêpes made Autoire especially memorable.
I wrote down the name of the delicious confection that I had for dessert,
which was something like a large, flat, cakey muffin with embedded
fruits: flaugnarde aux fruits sur coulis de framboises. However, my
otherwise reliable crib sheet, Langenscheidt's Pocket Menu Reader
for France, let me down on a translation for that one. |
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Carennac
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| Lovely Carennac, a beautiful town on the beautiful river Dordogne,
was our destination on my last day. Carennac is yet another of the
Most Beautiful Villages. |
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| And my first destination in Carennac was the public toilettes, there
behind that white door. Without a doubt, it was the most gorgeous
setting for a restroom that I have ever seen. (The restroom itself
was perfectly ordinary, or maybe even a little less than that. In
general I would say this about the public restrooms I saw in France:
theyre for people who are really sincere about
wanting to use them.) |
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| So here is a view of the Dordogne from the steps in front of the
toilettes. |
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| The
fiftteenth-century abbey of Carennac is famous for its Romanesque
architecture. Click the
picture for a larger view. |
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| The carved frieze at the entrance to the abbey. Click
the picture for
a larger view. The abbey is undergoing restoration. Inside, ancient
frescoes are all but obliterated by mold and mildew. |
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| Forecourt of the abbey. Janet is looking
toward the entrance with the frieze, which is flush with the wall
to the right. |
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| To my left as I was taking the preceding photo was just
this door in an otherwise undistinguished wall of the forecourt. Just
an old door. This is the third of my three favorite pictures. Click
the picture to see this one enlarged. |
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| Dinner in Carennac. A toast: vive la France. |
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Gare dAusterlitz,
Paris
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| My first and last nights in France, I stayed
at the Hotel Libertel, a funky little hole-in-the-wall whose main
asset is its location—this close to the Gare dAusterlitz,
the train station from which we traveled via railway (SNCF) between
Paris and Gramat, nearest stop to the farm. This picture was taken
from the front door of the hotel, on the Boulevard de lHopital. |
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| Looking left from just in front of the hotel.
The traffic speed and noise on this street defy description. The next
light, down there where you see the farthest cars, is at a bridge
that crosses the Seine. It was an easy stroll from the hotel down
to the riverbank to watch Parisians dance the warm summer night away. |
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| The neighborhood of the station and the hotel,
though very unexceptional, is heavily trafficked and feels both decent
and safe. There was really nothing there to take pictures of, but
I took them anyway. No major-sights-of-Paris tours on this trip. |
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| One sidewalk cafe after another up and down
the street offers good, basic French fare at reasonable prices. Taking
the city and the countryside together, I dont
believe I had more than one indoor restaurant meal the whole trip,
and that one was only halfway indoors. |
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| Why is there is a busy McDonalds
right at the next corner? I have no idea. |
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| Somewhat bemused by my fifth-floor view of
the back streets, I took this sunset-over-Paris photo as my last recorded
image of my trip to France. |
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