{"id":1354,"date":"2007-06-17T12:14:18","date_gmt":"2007-06-17T11:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/?p=1354"},"modified":"2011-09-06T12:14:39","modified_gmt":"2011-09-06T11:14:39","slug":"1762007-%e2%80%93-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/1762007-%e2%80%93-sunday\/","title":{"rendered":"17\/6\/2007 \u2013 Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grey start to a miserable day.\u00a0 Showers throughout.<\/p>\n

I decided that it wasn\u2019t day to pussy-foot around with mere hangovers.\u00a0 The best thing to do was to drive around until the hangovers disappeared.\u00a0 I picked a route I\u2019d been meaning to do for some time which incorporated a couple of historic sites in and around Rocamadour.\u00a0\u00a0 It being a Sunday, I was worried that Rocamadour might be full of tourists – I mean it is France\u2019s second most visited natural attraction after Le Mont St. Michel.\u00a0 But I reasoned that it being a wet Sunday and the fact that the French only \u2018do\u2019 tourism in July and August, that we might get away with the hordes of snappers.<\/p>\n

Took a different route to Rocamadour and it was a far far better thing than I have ever done on other routes.\u00a0 It followed the river along the gorge and then up through limestone tunnels and stacks onto the plane.\u00a0 Very beautiful scenery and much better than the plain old rolling green countryside of a route that I usually take.\u00a0 I mean if you want wonderful green undulating countryside you could stay in Sussex.<\/p>\n

It was pissing it down when we arrived at Rocamadour, and the place was absolutely heaving with day-trippers who were clearly trying to get rid of their hangovers, or get in some early practice for July and August.\u00a0 The lower car-parks were full so we started at the top of the cliff and walked down into the village.\u00a0 Starting at the ramparts, towering 200 metres above the valley, was a new way of encountering this bizarre village built into the rock.\u00a0 I defy anybody not to suffer from vertigo when you look down from a crumbling stone path with only a 3ft wall for protection.\u00a0 We certainly were in no mood for any other sort of hangovers up there.<\/p>\n

After walking down and then past all the tacky touristy shoppes, we walked back up again.\u00a0 Well that\u2019s all there is to do in Rocamadour unless you want to take the silly tourist train back to the top, which I certainly didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Paul was moaning a bit, but he soon snapped out of it when I bought him an ice cream and said if he was good I\u2019d take him for an afternoon treat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The afternoon treat was a trip to an old watermill that spans the river across the valley a little bit further downstream.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bit difficult to find because you follow a bumpy single-track lane for a few kilometers, but that didn\u2019t seem to stop the coach-loads of unseasonal tourists from making the same trek.\u00a0 The mill is 13th<\/sup> century but is still grinding flour to this day \u2013 not bad for an 800 year-old machine.\u00a0 Has anybody from Moulinex ever thought of getting some design tips I wonder?\u00a0 My crap Magimix broke after just twice trying to make something unambitious with flour and milk.<\/p>\n

There is a tour guide at the mill, but she only spoke in tongues so we slipped past her did the tour ourselves.\u00a0 We still managed to fill a bag with some complimentary flour though, which was included in the 3.5 euro entrance ticket.\u00a0 Almost Waitrose prices!<\/p>\n

From the mill we drove on past some other scenic wonders (chateux yawn \u2026 chapels built on overhanging rock yawn \u2026.\u00a0\u00a0 Medieval villages yawn \u2026.\u00a0 Vistas as far as the eye could see yawn \u2026), and then it was time for food.<\/p>\n

We got to Martel, which is a lovely little village famed for something I\u2019m sure, but for us it was a restauration stop. \u00a0\u00a0Played cards in a bar until the food started at 7 o\u2019clock.\u00a0 It would be immodest of me to say who won, because it was my rules & my pack of cards so Paul didn\u2019t stand a chance.\u00a0 I celebrated by eating a giant pizza \u2013 Paul chose a red-raw steak (he was missing his meat poor thing \u2013 that should make him stop).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grey start to a miserable day.\u00a0 Showers throughout. I decided that it wasn\u2019t day to pussy-foot around with mere hangovers.\u00a0 The best thing to do was to drive around until the hangovers disappeared.\u00a0 I picked a route I\u2019d been meaning to do for some time which incorporated a couple of historic sites in and around […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-living-in-france-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1354"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1356,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354\/revisions\/1356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}