Sarlat, Conques, March 31

  Today was a driving and touring day. After saying goodbye to Michel and Francine, we drove on BACK roads to Sarlat where we visited 5 years ago. This time it was to visit Mary Beth Splaine and Jack Weinhold who are staying there for 2 weeks.

   When we got to Sarlat, it was market day, so parking was a bit of a challenge. Then, we made our way in pouring rain to the Cathedral where Mary Beth met us. They are staying just a little ways from there at a large 2-bedroom airbnb. Jack was at the train station picking up one of their Nantucket friends, Susan Miller who has a condo in Bordeaux. Small world, indeed. We chatted for about an hour and made our way back to the car.

   From there we drove on twisting and turning tiny roads, some no bigger than a driveway, much along the Dordogne river to Conques. Conques sits high above the valley. It developed as an important monastery in the 700s. It was protected by the Carolingians (kings of Charlemagne's line) and in the 800s it got important relics of Saint Foy which drew pilgrims. This continued and is a stop on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage trail still.

   With a population of just over 200, it is a small town frozen in time and much visited.

    Much was closed, including all but 2 restaurants and few hotels, which is why we could not book a room there. But, we did a complete stroll of the village, encountering 2 monks as it is still an important monastic town.
    From there we went up, up, up on a precipitous road to try to find the hotel we had booked. We would have been better to have gone back down from Conques, but the GPS re-routed us and we persevered. (Mark drove this part.)
   We went to the wrong town. It was hard to read the hotel's directions as it was all in French and not entirely clear. So, we ended up in St. Felix de Lunel, just a crossroads. Barbara knocked on a door and asked for Le Kaymard, the name of the small hotel. We were told to go to Lunel, about 7 kilometers away.
   We found the hotel. Very, very basic. 5 rooms, 1 shared bathroom, 1 shared shower. One overhead bulb. But, it will do.

   Unfortunately, we were starving, having not eaten much since breakfast and there is no where in this little town to eat or buy food. So - back in the car 8 kilometers to a St. Cypriene. The only restaurant we found was not serving food for 45 minutes, but a kindly grocer pointed us toward a really basic "snack bar" - actually a bar with some food. But, we were hungry. The food was not great - rather grisly veal, but a decent salad and cheese plate.

    About half-way through our meal, two loud men came in. The place went rather quiet. We were a bit nervous once they started talking to us but we smiled a lot and used our translator as best as we could and they became quite friendly. But, when they left, the whole bar gave a sigh of relief.