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Annie Sargent: This is Join Us in France, Episode 484, quatre

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cent quatre vingt quatre.

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Bonjour, I'm Annie Sargent, and Join Us in France is the podcast where we take

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a conversational journey through the beauty, culture, and flavors of France.

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Today, I bring you a conversation with Elyse Rivin of Toulouse Guided

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Walks about the Lot Department, which stands out for its remarkable blend of

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historical sites and natural beauty.

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We'll guide you through the dramatic landscapes of Rocamadour, the depth

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of the Gouffre de Padirac, the lovely painted cave of Pech-Merle, and more.

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So much to enjoy in the Lot.

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Which is in the Southwest of France, by the way, it's just an

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hour away from Toulouse, really. This podcast is supported by donors and listeners who buy my tours and

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services, including my Itinerary Consult Service, my GPS self-guided tours of

1:11

Paris on the VoiceMap app, and I'm writing a new one, a food tour of Paris.

1:18

You know, I love food, right? I didn't get big by hating food.

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Yeah. Yeah. But you could also take a day trip with me around the Southwest in my electric

1:28

car, and you can browse all of that on my boutique joinusinfrance.com/boutique.

1:34

There will not be a magazine part of the podcast today because I was in Paris all

1:39

week writing my new food tour, so I don't have any new patrons to thank today.

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But remember that to join the wonderful community of patrons and francophiles

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who support this podcast and have kept it going for 10 years now, you can go

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to patreon.com/joinus, and to support Elyse, go to patreon.com/ElysArt.

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And please do not fall for the join for free crap that

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Patreon is doing these days. It doesn't help you or me.

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You're not going to get a thing extra from me, and I don't get any money

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from you, which I do need the money because this is an Indie podcast.

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Okay? Elyse Rivin: Bonjour Elyse.

2:38

Bonjour Annie. Annie Sargent: What a great topic we have today, but I will let you make

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that joke because I know you're itching. Elyse Rivin: I am itching.

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I can't stand it. I can't stand it. We're going to talk about the Department of the Lot.

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And there is such a lot to say about the Lot.

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Uh huh. Uh huh. Annie Sargent: I love it a lot.

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Elyse Rivin: I love it a lot. Annie Sargent: I love it a lot in the Lot.

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I love it a lot, in the Lot, on the lot, everywhere in the Lot.

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Beautiful place. Okay. Don't turn us off yet.

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We're done with the corny jokes. Now we have to have some actual interesting things

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to tell you about the Lot. And I will let Elyse take it away, I'll interrupt as little as I can stand.

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Elyse Rivin: I would really like to begin by saying, I know that France

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is a gorgeous country, and I have seen maybe three quarters of it.

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There's a part of it I haven't seen yet, but I'm not sure if it's

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the part I actually want to go to. Annie Sargent: Oh, Elyse Rivin: stop Annie Sargent: it.

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Elyse Rivin: Well the flatlands up north, you know, next to that

3:34

strange country called Belgium. But anyway, but I have to say that, sincerely, the Lot is one

3:41

of my most favorite places to go.

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It is a department that is of course in the southwest, that is north of

3:49

Toulouse, it's east of Bordeaux, a little further east of Bordeaux

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than it is north of Toulouse. I'm sure that many of you, if you've traveled in the southwest of France have

3:59

spent a little bit of time in part of it.

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It's a famous department. It is filled with amazingly, numerous things to see, historical

4:10

things, not nature things. The cliffs, the rivers, it's a very special kind of climate.

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It's part of what is called the coasts and the coasts are what

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are called limestone plateaus. I won't go into the details because I can't even explain the erosion,

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but I know it has to do with erosion from millions of years ago.

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And so a good part of the department, which is actually a department that was

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carved out of two ancient areas called the, one was called the Quercy, which

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most people may not know the name, it actually comes from an old word, they

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think it's from the Latin word for oak because it's filled with live oak

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trees, like in parts of California. And the other part that's in the more of the southwest, is actually

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carved out of the old Dordogne area.

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So it's a department that has three rivers going through it that are

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very important for Lot, the Dordogne, and another river called the Célé.

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Annie Sargent: Okay. So that's a minor river, right? Elyse Rivin: It's, a medium-sized river.

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It's actually a tributary that goes into the Lot, comes out of the Massif Central.

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And it has, it's not a super small river, it's really what I think we

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could say is a medium-sized river.

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It has a bunch of villages and things along the way, and it's

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where on one end, the Figeac is. Annie Sargent: Oh, that's the river that goes through Figeac.

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Elyse Rivin: That's the river that goes to Figeac, right? It's actually, it comes, it goes north, and it kind of

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goes east afterwards, you know. Whereas the Dordogne, is the northern part, and the Lot comes to basically

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the southern part, but pretty much they all run east west in the department.

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But it's an area that, you know, everybody has their preferences

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in terms of land, and geography.

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It was one of the first places that I discovered in my first travels in

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France a long, long time ago, and I had what the French call a coup de coeur.

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Annie Sargent: Yeah, definitely. It's stunning. Elyse Rivin: It's stunning and...

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Annie Sargent: Well, okay, let's be real. We're recording this in January.

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It is dreary weather. Of course, it's not as nice and dreary weather as it is the rest, you

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know, in the spring and summer, but it is a beautiful, beautiful place.

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Elyse Rivin: It's a beautiful place. It's very dramatic.

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And a good part of it is land that's relatively dry.

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The coasts are, because of the fact that it's mostly limestone,

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it's not a rich soil, so a lot of things don't grow in this area.

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Annie Sargent: Right, let me also interrupt to say that Causses

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Elyse Rivin: Say it again? Is C-A-U-S-S-E.

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I think it just translates as plateau, but I'm not sure.

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There are a whole bunch of them in the parts of the central part of France.

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And so there's a part of the Lot, which is a relatively

6:58

big department, that is green. That's the part that's really where the Dordogne River is, and it's much

7:03

more bucolic and very beautiful. Very, very beautiful.

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But then there's the other part that's much more dramatic. And for those of you have heard of, if you haven't already been to places like

7:12

St Cirq Lapopie, that is where you are on the Lot River and it's extremely dramatic.

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So altogether, it turns out that it's one of the most visited departments in

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France, which is not surprising, but it has very few people living in it.

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It's really one of the most rural in the sense that it has very few inhabitants.

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The biggest city is Cahors, which is the head city of the

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department, and it has 22.000 people.

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Annie Sargent: Wow, I didn't realize it was that few people in Cahors.

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22.000? Elyse Rivin: That not quite even.

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I mean a little bit. Oh wow. Yeah, it's really...

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And then the next biggest two little towns are 3.000 something.

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Annie Sargent: That's a village. Elyse Rivin: And then you have villages, you know, and then you

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have hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of these little villages.

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Annie Sargent: And somehow we've managed to do three episodes already

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about these towns in this department.

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We did episode 62 was about Cahors.

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So it's all about the history, blah, blah. St Cirq Lapopie is gorgeous, but it's very, very small.

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That's episode 43. And we talked about Rocamadour, gorgeous, gorgeous, dramatic looking village.

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That was episode 338. So the point of this episode today is kind of give you an overview of

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all the things that you might want to visit in the Lot Department.

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We already did one about the Aude Department.

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And I think it's good to have an overview of a department, even though really, in

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reality, if you drive from, you know, the edge of one department and you go

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into another, absolutely nothing changes.

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This is just a, it's like driving from one state to the other.

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No bells go off. No, nothing happens.

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You just happen to be in a different department.

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I mean, we have to, you know, we have to group things in areas in a way that

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makes some sense to French people anyway.

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And that would be the departament. Elyse Rivin: And so it, of course, this is a way, if you look things up, and I looked

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up many, many different sites in the last couple of days to sort of cross check some

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of the information, I have been to the Lot a lot, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that.

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I've been to the Lot a lot. And I really do love it, and I've been to much of it, I don't know if I've been to

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every single village, but it's interesting to know that it is one of the departments

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that has the most villages classified as most beautiful village in France.

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Annie Sargent: Oh, how many of that is that? 10.

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Okay. Well, that's right up there with the Aveyron, which also has a lot.

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Elyse Rivin: And I think the next, I think the next after that is already

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going up to Alsace or something like that.

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Annie Sargent: Oh, yeah, Alsace is chock full of them, as well. Elyse Rivin: Is chock full of them as well.

9:45

Right. Yeah. It has prehistoric caves.

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Of course, the most important one that is the most famous one is Pech Merle.

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And Pech Merle is, I've just been back in the last few months to visit it.

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It was my, this is like talking about your childhood, my adolescent romances.

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This is my first prehistoric cave.

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Oh, I'm going to have a fit. It was my first prehistoric cave.

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It was a long, it's a long story, for those of you who want to know

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about it, I'll tell you another time. But anyway, I don't think I've ever gotten over it.

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It is one of the few that is still all the genuine actual drawings and

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footprints and marks and engravings. It is an enormous, enormous, enormous cave.

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You drive along the Lot and then you kind of make this detour and you go

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up into these hills where it's all this very dry limestone and live oak.

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And there you are. And it is really rather exquisite and rather impressive.

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A word to those who are interested in anything prehistoric, Annie and I have

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both been to Lascaux, three, four, five, six, God knows how many now...

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No, it's really one, two, three, four. A lot.

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A lot. I've been to Niaux which is in the Ariège, been to a bunch.

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I've been to just about every prehistoric cave that is visitable in France.

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This, of course, you have to have a reservation, but this

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one is really quite spectacular.

11:02

Yes. Annie Sargent: Yes, so, this is one that stands out as far

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as accessibility, I think. It's a little bit easier to do than Niaux, for example.

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Because Niaux, you have to walk a kilometre and some

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just to get to the paintings. Whereas at Pech Merle, you go down about fifty steps, you walk a

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little ways, but then there you are.

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Elyse Rivin: I don't think it's, I don't think it's 50 steps, but it's

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definitely been set up so that there are steps and railings everywhere.

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Annie Sargent: Yes, and there are railings. Elyse Rivin: And it's completely developed.

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It's not, I wouldn't say it's well lit, but you can see

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where you're putting your feet. Whereas in Niaux, you do this with a tiny little flashlight and you know,

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it's more difficult for people that have access, you know, difficulties moving.

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But Pech Merle is great, when you approach, they have a parking lot,

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but you must reserve in advance.

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I would say this is one that you would probably want to reserve

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two or three months in advance. It's not quite as difficult to get tickets as Font-de-Gaume because

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it's not a national monument.

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I don't think it's a national monument at Pech Merle.

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I think it's a private cave. Annie Sargent: Yeah, anyway.

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But it's very nice, it's very well done.

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There are tours in English. They give you a little debrief when you arrive, before you enter

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the cave, then you probably spend 20 minutes inside of the cave?

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50. 50? Oh, I didn't realize it was that long.

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It went went fast, I guess. No, you spent almost 50 minutes inside the cave, because you do go kind of

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up and down and around, and now they have you stop at each of the places,

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and she or he will show you the things.

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Of course, these are all guided visits. No, it's almost an hour.

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We hope to take the people of the bootcamp in 2024.

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I need to make the arrangements, but yes, we want to take bootcamp members there.

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And I know we probably won't be able to do the whole group at once

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because there are restrictions as to how many people can enter at the

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same time, and they space things out.

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So this is one that you need to reserve, but if you search for Pech

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Merle Cave, you will find it easily, and there'll be a link in the show

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notes as well, but it's really one of the highlights of the department.

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Elyse Rivin: It has a little museum. It has a little snack place.

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I mean, it's in the middle of what is this very lovely, kind of dry forest.

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I would describe it that way. Annie Sargent: Yeah. And you can totally have a snack, or a light meal or a picnic there.

13:43

Yeah. There's stuff for all of that. Elyse Rivin: And it Is very close, as you go along the Lot River to the very

13:49

famous village of St Cirq Lapopie, and I'm just going to say very, something

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very briefly about it, because I think a lot of people have visited, and if

13:56

certainly have heard about it, it is really one of the most spectacular and

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beautiful villages in all of France.

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And France, we know, has probably a thousand gorgeous villages, really.

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It was voted most beautiful village in France a few years ago, and it is

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absolutely unbelievable, and spectacular.

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It's perched in several levels going up to the top of this cliff.

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And you can easily do St Cirq Lapopie and Pech Merle in the same day because

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both of them are on the road that goes along the Lot River, which you get to

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really by going through Cahors, which as I mentioned is the only real city

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in the entire department, you know. Annie Sargent: Yeah, and a small city at that.

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Elyse Rivin: And a small city, although I have to say that it is quite charming.

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It has the famous medieval bridge that is the only still intact,

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fortified bridge left from the Middle Ages in France, with this little

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devil holding a finger on the stone. And it has a very small, but very interesting little medieval

14:57

Renaissance section that is slowly being rebuilt and restored.

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So every time I go, I see there, what buildings that were once in ruin are now

15:06

all fixed up, and it's very charming. It has a great market, has a super great market on Saturdays.

15:11

It's one of those producers that come from all over.

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This is an area that has lots of farms that produce goods,

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and so this is, this is all the southern part of the department.

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You can go on many, many of these departmental roads, and in the show

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notes, there's a list of some of the other villages that you can

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visit that are absolutely gorgeous. All of them have a spectacular point of view, they're either along

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the river down below, or they're perched up on high above on a cliff.

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Some of them have chateaus that are visitable, some of them it's just the

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gorgeous architecture of the Lot, which is very typical of this area, which is this

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very kind of mellow pale yellow limestone.

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It's not white-white, like Bordeaux white.

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It's just very beautiful. It gives a nice soft color to it with this very beautiful brown tiles.

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And these very steep roofs. Why steep?

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Because they do get a lot of rain actually in the winter time.

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Annie Sargent: Mm hmm. Elyse Rivin: And if you go East, all the way to the other end of

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the department, before you, and I'm going to let Annie talk about the

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northern part, which is part that she actually knows better than I do.

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But if you go all the way east and you follow along the city, which

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is actually a road that is lovely. Again, these are meandering roads, you have to have plenty of time.

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This is no big auto route. There's no big auto route that crisscrosses the Lot.

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You have to really give yourself the time to do this and make stops along

16:32

the way and take pictures or whatever. But you get to the very charming, small town, let's, or small city

16:39

if you want to call it, of Figeac. So I take it back, it is the only one that has actually more than 3.000,

16:45

but it's about 9.000 people in Figeac.

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Annie Sargent: Yeah. Yeah. Figeac is a small town.

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It has a fair bit of industry though, because quite a few Airbus subcontractors

16:56

are in Figeac, so they have a lot of engineering jobs and kind of project

17:02

management for airplanes kind of jobs.

17:05

I know this because I, for a short time, I did English over

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the phone with these people. And so I would get them to tell me about their job.

17:14

Elyse Rivin: But it's of course famous being the home of Champollion, the man

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who translated, deciphered, more or less correct, I think the Rosetta Stone.

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And so it has, besides having a very beautiful old Renaissance city centre,

17:27

very well restored, it has the wonderful Museum of Written Languages, with a

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huge reproduction of the Rosetta Stone.

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It's a lovely spot to visit. It's a little bit out of the way compared to much of the other stuff

17:40

that you can visit and see in the Lot, but it is really very lovely.

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Annie Sargent: Right. And we did an episode about Figeac that was episode 143.

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So it's an old one. And it's a really great museum as well.

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It's really interesting. It's very modern.

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It's been renovated not very long ago.

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It's not the dusty museum that you sometimes find in small towns like this.

18:03

It's a very well worth museum to visit, I think.

18:07

Elyse Rivin: I agree with you. I think it's lovely. If you're fascinated by writing systems, languages, it's a

18:11

lovely, very modern museum. It has audio guides in many different languages.

18:16

It's really charming. And Figeac is charming.

18:19

It is a bit on the extreme eastern side of the Lot department.

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But you can plan out your visit in a way that if you're going to spend a few days

18:25

in the Lot, which is certainly something I would suggest, you can make a visit

18:31

to the Figeac and then kind of work your way back towards the western part,

18:35

where there are lots of beautiful little villages, and then go up towards the

18:38

northern part, which is where the Dordogne River actually goes through it, and

18:42

then you get to Rocamadour and Padirac.

18:46

Annie Sargent: Right, right. And I'll be talking about those.

18:49

But before I get to them, I want to say that, when you are, and this

18:53

is exactly what we're going to do with the bootcamp, so never say

18:56

that I don't spill any secrets. What you do is you go to Pech Merle, the Painted Cave, and you spend, oh,

19:05

two, perhaps three hours there, and then you go to the village of Bouziès, which

19:11

is just down the hill by the river.

19:14

And there they have Les Croisières de St Cirq Lapopie, is what it's called,

19:21

and you can by boat go between Bouziès and St Cirq Lapopie, which is lovely.

19:27

Last time I was there, we couldn't do it because it was full and

19:30

we would have had to wait. So I'll put a link in the show notes of where you can reserve this in

19:36

advance if you know you're going to go. But you can also walk the path.

19:41

So they have a path called Le Chemin de Halage de Bouziès, this will all be in

19:48

the show notes, where you walk along, and so a chemin de halage was a place

19:55

where either beast or man pulled boats.

20:00

And I don't remember if that one was beast or man.

20:03

Elyse Rivin: I remember that the, one time I did it, which was with a group, they

20:08

said that at first it was men, and then after a while they used mules or horses.

20:16

Annie Sargent: Okay. Yeah. And this is before the boats had power, you know, motors.

20:22

And it's just a beautiful, beautiful walk, and many parts you have rock

20:30

above your head because they carved out a piece to make this happen.

20:35

There's a piece of art, there's an art installation on the side.

20:40

I know I have photos of it, but I don't remember what it's called

20:42

right this moment, but there's this beautiful kind of metal art that's

20:48

installed along the way at some point.

20:51

And you can make your way all the way to St Cirq Lapopie that way.

20:54

I did not go all the way, did you? I did, but I didn't go from Pech Merle, I went from Bouziès.

21:00

Bouziès is on the other side side of the river.

21:02

I'm not sure if it's on the other side of the river.

21:06

But the river doesn't go all the way up to Pech Merle.

21:10

The river goes to the bottom of Pech Merle. Right, and Bouziès is the town that's at the bottom.

21:15

And then from Bouziès, you can walk to St Cirq Lapopie.

21:19

Elyse Rivin: Then you look up and you go, Oh my God, I've got to walk up to the top.

21:24

Annie Sargent: Did you do that? I didn't. Yes. Yeah.

21:26

Well, this was only about 10 years ago, but I was in a

21:29

really good shape to say here.

21:31

Good for you, I never did it. So anyway, so it's a really, really fun day.

21:37

And lots of French people do this. I don't think that I see a lot of foreign visitors.

21:42

Elyse Rivin: Not doing the Chemin de Halage, I don't think so.

21:46

Annie Sargent: They probably don't know about it. Elyse Rivin: Or they rent a boat and they just do a little boating on the

21:49

river, which is something of course that you can do in this part of the Lot.

21:52

Annie Sargent: But kids love this. I mean, you know, a little boat, you walk in this beautiful path, they

21:58

get, you hear a lot of squealing.

22:00

Elyse Rivin: Absolutely. Absolutely, squealing, squealing.

22:03

I've just been around a squealing baby for a few days, I know about squealing, yes.

22:08

Annie Sargent: Yes. Okay. So, we're not going to go into details about Cahors, but

22:13

let's just say a few things. It's a town.

22:15

You said, yeah, there's a a beautiful market. There's a gorgeous market.

22:19

There's very good wine in Cahors, although it's a very specific

22:23

type of wine that we've talked about on the podcast a few times.

22:26

It's great to go with kind of hearty, meaty meals, right?

22:33

It's not the sort of wine that, I mean, it's very flavorful and pretty

22:38

heavy flavor, but also I think it's like 13, 14 degrees alcohol.

22:42

It's also pretty strong. Elyse Rivin: I'm not sure about the alcohol.

22:45

I did put a little bit in the show notes.

22:47

If people are interested in the history of wines, the main grape in the Cahors

22:52

is Malbec, which was exported to Argentina, among other places, where

22:57

people think that the Malbec comes from Argentina, but no, it comes from Cahors.

23:02

And it is, in fact, one of the most ancient red wines in France, and it has

23:07

a very long history, and it was basically made to disappear from the international

23:13

scene as a wine by the British.

23:16

One of these days, we're going to do the a hundred years war and we're going to

23:18

talk about things like that, you know, and the Black Prince and everything.

23:22

It has a fascinating history and yes, it is a very full bodied, very flavorful,

23:27

lots of good taste of almost cherry. Strangely enough, I'm not a big fan of red wines, but I love this wine.

23:33

I absolutely love it. Annie Sargent: I like Malbec as well. I think it's one of the best.

23:37

Elyse Rivin: And it is really a wine that just comes from this area.

23:39

That is really what the Cahors area is known for, besides the other

23:43

foodstuffs that are known in this area.

23:46

But Cahors is basically the county seat of the lot.

23:50

So it has a very small but very charming old historic center.

23:53

It has this very famous bridge, the Pont Valantré, which is really kind of fun

23:58

to go and visit, and take a picture. Annie Sargent: Sure.

24:00

Yes. The cathedral isn't bad.

24:02

The inside, I remember the inside, the stained glass windows were

24:07

very modern, so I think they must have gotten broken or something.

24:10

Elyse Rivin: They are, but it's a very unusual church, like the churches in

24:13

the Perigord area that has a dome. It has 2 domes, so it's an architecture that's very special

24:19

in relation to what you typically see in this area where we are here.

24:22

It's a very interesting, very old cathedral.

24:25

Annie Sargent: It's not as striking as the one in Perigueux, but I can

24:28

see why it's a similar kind of style.

24:31

Elyse Rivin: But basically Cahors is a place that is a good place to stop

24:34

very, I would say, briefly before you go and explore further either

24:38

north or east or zigzagging to your way into these wonderful surprise

24:44

little villages that are on these departmental roads along the way.

24:48

Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah. Only small roads in the Lot really.

24:52

And, you know, take your time. You're going to have to drive 70 kilometers per hour.

24:57

And don't think that's like the same as miles.

25:00

Elyse Rivin: No, and 70 will be fast. Believe me, you know.

25:03

Annie Sargent: Yeah, most of the time it'll feel fast, so, and very

25:06

often there's not anywhere to pull over really, and it is not an easy

25:11

driving place, but if you like to drive hilly, you know, switchback

25:17

kind of places, you will love it.

25:20

Elyse Rivin: And there are lots of gorgeous little villages.

25:23

Interestingly, it is a department that has not a huge population, but it is a

25:28

department that has an enormous percentage of vacation homes and places to rent.

25:33

And people should know this because if you're interested in spending several

25:36

days, this is a place where you can either get a gîte, or do an Airbnb.

25:41

Lots of people who have second homes rent out for part of the year.

25:45

You have lots of these beautiful old stone houses that have

25:47

been restored along the way. Annie Sargent: Yeah, if I was looking for a place to stay in the Lot, well,

25:54

other than Cahors and Figeac, where I'm sure they have several hotels, not a ton

25:59

of them, but they might have 2-3 hotels.

26:01

I would look for either a B&B or a Airbnb or a Gîte de France.

26:10

I'm sure they have a ton of them. Yeah, and Gîte de France used to be mostly for long term rentals, but anymore

26:18

they will just rent to you for a week... Elyse Rivin: Oh, even long weekends.

26:22

You know, I mean, every owner can decide what they want to do, but

26:25

these are places, it's a department in an area that does get hot in the

26:29

summer, and so many of these places, because they are designed for bringing

26:33

tourists, and will have swimming pools. And you can swim in the river, you can swim in the Lot, in certain parts, and

26:38

you can swim in the Dordogne, also. This is one of the things that you should know about if you're thinking of making

26:44

a stay in one of these areas, you know.

26:46

Annie Sargent: Right, but if you're going in the middle of the summer, get a place

26:49

with air conditioning, you will die. Elyse Rivin: And swimming pool, a swimming pool.

26:52

And so if you go north, you go in north end of the department, it gets into the

26:56

more rugged part, believe it or not.

26:59

In the center of the department is an area that's called the Regional

27:04

Park of the Quercy, which is the name of one of these plateau areas.

27:09

Annie Sargent: That's Q-U-E-R-C-Y Elyse Rivin: And it's filled with trails for biking and hiking, and it

27:17

has a lot of nature expositions, and there are people who take you around.

27:22

And it, it also is an area, to my great surprise, that is considered to

27:27

be one of the best places in all of France where you can do stargazing.

27:31

It's called the Black Triangle of the Quercy Coast.

27:35

Annie Sargent: Oh, wow. Elyse Rivin: Like the name of a new movie.

27:38

Oh, you know, and apparently there is so little light contamination, in spite

27:44

of the fact that you have these little villages dispersed all over the place.

27:48

They have places where they have set up telescopes and they have animators

27:52

and you can go and do a whole lot of stargazing and stuff like that right in

27:57

the center of the Lot at the same time.

27:59

Annie Sargent: So this is probably the sort of thing you can just search for.

28:02

I'll see if I can find links to events like this.

28:05

I mean, this is not every night, it's once in a while. Elyse Rivin: No. Right, and in fact, one of the sites I discovered, it's

28:10

closed in the wintertime anyway. Annie Sargent: Yeah, most of these places, you really don't want to go in January,

28:15

February, March perhaps, but you know, it's best to go April through October.

28:23

Yeah. Elyse Rivin: And then you have some of these villages.

28:26

I'm just going to mention the names of them. If you love beautiful old villages with stone houses, churches, ruins of chateaus,

28:35

or chateaus that are actually in a state where you can visit them, perched on

28:40

top of a cliff or down below a river, you will have your fill in the Lot.

28:46

A couple of them are places that I discovered and found

28:49

absolutely magnificent. One of them is really up in the northern end called Autoire.

28:53

It's very small, it's spectacular and surrounded by cliffs

28:58

where you can do these hikes. You have Cajarc, which turns out to be one I haven't visited, but where

29:04

a lot of famous people actually have, or had summer homes, including Georges

29:09

Pompidou, who was the president of France. Like, thank you very much.

29:13

It's also the centre Cajarc of the market for saffron, which is one of

29:17

the products, or one of the, I don't, product isn't really the right word.

29:21

One of the.. Annie Sargent: Crops? Crops, Elyse Rivin: thank you, of the Lot, which is of course very exotic at this

29:26

point because, it used to be very, very important and now, of course, I think

29:31

it's just a sort of specialty crop. But it turns out to that Cajarc is where you can do some shopping

29:36

for real genuine saffron. Annie Sargent: Nice.

29:39

Elyse Rivin: There's a small town that's beautiful on the northern end

29:42

of the department called Martel, which is known for its seven towers, and

29:47

it is the home of the truffle market.

29:49

Annie Sargent: Aha. Nice. Elyse Rivin: Do you like truffles, Annie?

29:52

In small quantities. Mm.

29:54

Annie Sargent: I like truffles, I like truffled oil.

29:58

If you make an omelette, when your omelette's all done and nice and dry, I

30:01

like my omelettes really dry, you just put a tiny bit of truffle oil over it.

30:07

Ooh, it tastes good. I have to admit that I've only tasted it once or twice, and I'm

30:11

not sure I know exactly what it really tastes like a truffle.

30:15

Oh, I know what it tastes like, but I can't describe it.

30:18

It can be very strong. I don't like strong truffle, but if it's done with flair, it's good.

30:26

It will make any vegetable, like a plain old vegetable, like a zucchini,

30:30

or a heaven forbid, like spinach...

30:34

Yeah. Broccoli, it doesn't go along, but of course, I don't really like broccoli,

30:38

so nothing goes along with it. Elyse Rivin: Okay. We'll stay with omelets and truffles.

30:42

I think that's the best. Annie Sargent: I think omelettes with a tiny bit of truffle oil over.

30:45

A little bit of cheese with truffle? Perhaps. Elyse Rivin: That's a specialty around this area for Christmas.

30:50

Annie Sargent: Yeah, and probably then. Oh, no, I lie, I've had brie with a truffle mixture in between the

30:58

brie, oh, that's really good, huh? Yes.

31:01

yes, yes, and I don't even, and I don't even like brie that much.

31:04

But you have to, you don't want to let that brie run.

31:08

That brie needs to be eaten within half an hour out of the fridge.

31:11

It's like one of these serving secrets, some brie you want

31:14

them to run, some you do not. Elyse Rivin: Okay, I'll let it run away from me.

31:17

I'll let it go somewhere else. Really.

31:20

Another village that I find gorgeous is a village called Carennac, which is also

31:26

going north, towards Rocamadour and has a beautiful, beautiful Benedictine Abbey.

31:31

And a magnificent, magnificent château.

31:34

So, there are just a whole bunch of them. There's a list you will be able to see and you can take a look on the map

31:41

and you can sort of plot out where you want to go and what you want to do.

31:44

As you get further north, you get to the very mysterious

31:48

and very dramatic Rocamadour.

31:51

Annie Sargent: Yes, so this is where I take over, because...

31:53

This is where she takes over. Elyse Rivin: All that Annie Sargent: Rocamadour is my jam.

31:57

So, I have must have gone to Rocamadour and nearby, Gouffre de Padirac several

32:03

times as a kid, for sure, because it was one of my mother's favorite outings.

32:07

We would go for the long weekend or something. And by the way, if you are going to be in France during one of our many long

32:14

weekends coming up, beware, French people like to go out on long weekends, and so

32:20

things are going to be very, very busy. But so, Rocamadour, as you approach, you see this beautiful village in

32:28

the cliff, on the side of the cliff.

32:31

Now we did an, a whole episode about it, it was episode 338, where I even

32:36

have details in the show notes for that episode about where you should

32:40

park, because it's not very easily accessible since it's so hilly.

32:45

So you can park at the bottom and walk up.

32:47

But, you know, the knees don't like that too much anymore, so I tend to try

32:52

and park on the top, and take the...

32:54

You can take the elevator from the bottom as well.

32:57

There's an elevator. It costs a few euros, but it's well worth it, the elevator.

33:01

And it is gorgeous, there is a pilgrimage route if you want to do that.

33:07

It takes you to an old church that was very, very small.

33:10

Elyse Rivin: Carved in the rock. Annie Sargent: Yes. yes, yes.

33:14

It's very nice. So I would say that if you go to Rocamadour, it's a good place to

33:20

stay, and I would recommend that you stay away from Rocamadour where

33:25

you have the view of the village.

33:27

If you're in the village, you cannot see the village.

33:30

So, you know, stay away from Rocamadour.

33:32

Most of the hotels, so these hotels are not very, very large because most of the

33:38

year, they don't have a need for a lot of hotel rooms, but in the big busy months,

33:44

they get full very fast and you pay a premium when you go in the busy months.

33:49

So, work that out well in advance, especially if you're going in May

33:54

when we have the long weekends. But anytime you go to a place like this that's very touristy and doesn't

33:59

have a lot of accommodations, you can plan on, you know, difficulties finding

34:05

a room, and paying a premium for it.

34:08

I mean, that's just how it is. Elyse Rivin: Just to make sure, if you can listen to the episode

34:11

on Rocamadour, but when Annie says that it's hilly, St Cirq Lapopie

34:16

is steep, but this is beyond steep.

34:19

This is cut into four levels on this huge 150 meter high cliff.

34:27

And it is absolutely amazing to see.

34:29

Annie Sargent: And the other thing my mother liked to do when we went,

34:32

oh, there's another thing now, there's La Forêt des Singes, so

34:35

the forest of monkeys, where the monkeys are trained, really, I mean,

34:40

they're macaque monkeys, variety of macaque, I don't know which ones.

34:44

And they will come to you because they know you have peanuts.

34:47

When you enter, they give you a bag, a small bag of peanuts, and they tell

34:50

you not to give them anything else, because if you enter the property with

34:55

anything else, the monkeys can smell it.

34:57

I mean, they want the peanuts, but they also want whatever else you might have,

35:00

and they can get a little bit aggressive. Elyse Rivin: Yes, macaques can.

35:03

Annie Sargent: Yes, so don't enter that with any food other

35:07

than the ones that they give you. And I think they really should stop giving because, you know, kids get kind

35:14

of pushed around by the monkeys if the parents are not careful, et cetera.

35:17

So that's something where I went several times as a kid.

35:20

And also you have The Gouffre de Padirac, which is a favorite of mine.

35:25

So this is... a gouffre is a...

35:28

I think you say it's a chasm?

35:30

It's a chasm, right. It's a chasm.

35:32

It's a vertical, it's like a well in the sense, you know, it's a vertical

35:36

hole that goes down very deep.

35:38

It's a giant well. Yes, but it's a natural well, and so to get in, you have to

35:46

take some steps to begin with.

35:48

And then there's different levels, you know, they make

35:51

you stop here and stop there. And then you get into an elevator that takes you to the bottom.

35:56

And it's not a very long elevator ride, but there is an elevator.

36:01

And then, or perhaps you can do the whole thing by foot.

36:06

I don't recall if you can do the whole?

36:10

I remember getting in an elevator, so probably everybody

36:12

gets in on the elevator. At any rate, you get to the bottom and it's 103 meters.

36:19

So that's probably, what?

36:22

Elyse Rivin: 350 feet? Annie Sargent: Yeah, so how many stories is that?

36:26

If it was a building. It'd be a 10 story building or something?

36:29

Elyse Rivin: It's pretty deep. Annie Sargent: It's into the ground and you get to the bottom and you walk

36:34

around the cave a little bit and you see some beautiful cave formations just

36:38

like any other cave and then you get to some boats, some flat bottom boats.

36:44

And they have gondoliers, I guess, that will take you around, in the

36:49

underground river and it is so fun.

36:53

And as you're about to exit, they at some point they take...

36:57

they flash a... It's like Disneyland. They take your photo and then you can buy the photo when you exit.

37:03

And so I have photos of me at that spot a few times, you know.

37:07

I love it. It's beautiful. It's peaceful.

37:10

It is a place where a lot of tour guides will bring people.

37:14

And so it is full of bus loads of tourists.

37:19

So this is something that you have to plan in advance.

37:22

Do not just pull up and hope you get a ticket.

37:25

You won't. So, look online, buy your tickets at least a couple of weeks in advance.

37:32

If it's high season and a long weekend or something, then, you know, book

37:38

as soon as the tickets are available. They do close for the winter a little bit, so it's possible, like, I looked

37:44

at Pech Merle just yesterday, so Pech Merle is closed this time of year,

37:49

which is January, early January.

37:51

But their website doesn't work either, which is weird.

37:55

So you can't even buy tickets. You can't buy tickets now.

37:59

So they, when they come back to work, which I believe is March,

38:03

they will then reopen the sales.

38:05

But this is normal for, this is par for the course in France, things

38:09

close in the winter months, and especially rural France like that.

38:14

So Padirac is kind of like that as well, although I didn't go looking for tickets

38:17

yesterday, but I'm sure you, you need to do this a little bit ahead of time.

38:22

It happens that Padirac and Rocamadour, because they're so very close to each

38:26

other, they get masses and masses of tourists, which interestingly

38:29

enough, I mean, Pech Merle gets tourists, but it's not like Rocamadour.

38:33

It turns out that after Mont Saint Michel, it is the second most

38:36

visited site outside of Paris.

38:38

Is that right? That doesn't surprise me.

38:41

You know, we've said this a lot about Carcassonne, you know, don't go on a

38:45

long weekend or any weekend in the summer really, because it's so full of people.

38:51

Rocamadour is that sort of place.

38:54

So it would be better, like if you have your druthers, I would take people

39:00

there in April, perhaps in October.

39:03

May, except for the long weekends, you know.

39:06

Yeah, May, the long weekends are going to be very busy, very busy.

39:09

And they have busloads, I mean, these are places that have busloads of people

39:12

because it is still considered a sanctuary and a lot of people go there and they

39:17

have two music festivals in the summer. So it's a very big tourist attraction.

39:21

Yeah. And well deserved because it is beautiful and it's extremely picture worthy, like

39:29

you can't take a bad picture in there. It's lovely, lovely.

39:31

So yes, I do recommend you go, but timing is important.

39:36

And this area, which is really getting, if you take a look at the map of how, of

39:39

course, the department of the Lot, which everything is kind of cut up, all of these

39:43

were created at the time of the Revolution anyway, But we are getting to the northern

39:48

end of the department, and this is where you have the town of Martel, where you

39:53

have another town, which is right on the edge, actually going into Dordogne,

39:56

which is called Gourdon which, it's not as exquisite because part of it is old

40:01

and very pretty, but it's more of a town. It's industrial.

40:04

Gourdon is industrial. Elyse Rivin: It's got a very, I'm not sure how industrial it is, but

40:08

I know it's famous for its market. Annie Sargent: Okay.

40:11

Elyse Rivin: It's a place that has a certain amount of

40:13

accommodations of the kind of things you would look for in a city.

40:16

Annie Sargent: All right. So it has restaurants and hotels and things.

40:19

Elyse Rivin: Pharmacies, you know, I think a clinic, you know, that kind of stuff.

40:23

This is at the northwestern edge of, of the department.

40:26

But from there you can kind of go in every direction, you go west into the

40:30

Dordogne and just, you know, north into the Corrèze and all of that.

40:33

And this area is very wild.

40:36

The part of the Lot that is the wildest in terms of it not being very domesticated

40:42

is this northern part of the department.

40:44

And it has some of these very strange little beautiful villages hidden away.

40:48

So it's kind of fun if you're interested in exploring and not knowing exactly

40:53

where you're going to wind up, if you have a place to stay and you just one

40:56

day want to go driving around, this is a kind of a fun thing to do, you know?

41:00

Annie Sargent: Well, and of course, seeing that it's only a couple of hours away from

41:03

Toulouse, this is something I've started to offer as a day trip, you know, kind

41:08

of a day thing we can do from Toulouse. Go to Pech Merle in the morning, St Cirq Lapopie in the afternoon, Cahors on

41:14

the way back, get some wine, come home.

41:17

This is a whole full day. This is a very full day.

41:19

You have to, you know, be ready to go at eight in the morning, you're

41:22

not going to be back in your hotel until eight at night, but it's a

41:26

very full, beautiful day that I offer as a private guided visit as well.

41:31

If you'd like to do that and stuff like that, you can see

41:34

at joinusinfrance.com/boutique.

41:37

And I'm hardly the only one who offers this. It is obviously something that a lot of people do.

41:43

But the Lot is just beautiful.

41:46

It's just beautiful. If you want to go biking, it's not surprising to see people doing not

41:53

so long, like long distance biking, but you see people riding around

41:58

with panniers, you know, stopping here and there to camp overnight.

42:03

It is not an uncommon sight. And so drivers expect that around the corner, there might be some bikes.

42:10

And so you just, you drive slowly, you drive carefully.

42:13

You have to be zen driving the country roads in the place like the Lot.

42:16

And you can go rafting as well, as you noted, there's rafting there.

42:21

The food and drink. We didn't, talk about that. So let's get to the food and drink.

42:24

Yeah. Elyse Rivin: Very important. Well, we'd mentioned the Cahors wines, of course, which...

42:28

We also mentioned the truffles. And the truffles.

42:30

Is it produced locally? Truffles are actually one of the specificities of the Causse,

42:36

is that strangely enough, it's covered with live oak.

42:39

Now, I lived in California, so I'm, I know what it's like, land that has live oak.

42:44

It's apparently minerally poor, it's not very...

42:47

but it's typical that truffles grow under the live oak.

42:50

You know, and of course now they have dogs trained so that the little

42:55

piggies don't eat them, you know. They give the dog a nice bone and then they, you know, dig up the truffle,

43:00

although I just saw a report on television the other day that said that this

43:03

year there's been too much rain, and so they're rotting underground, which

43:08

is a catastrophe for the people who make their money by going truffling.

43:13

And going truffling is a very old tradition in France and people have

43:18

places that they know where to go.

43:20

And even though it's a very complicated thing, it goes back a long time

43:23

in the history of France, but the people take their truffles that

43:26

they found to this market, like at Martel, where they sell them.

43:30

Very often can be up to a thousand euros a kilo for truffles.

43:34

I mean, it's a lot. So this year, apparently, there's a big problem because they're all

43:38

kind of getting too wet inside. But this is where the truffles grow in this part that's relatively dry with

43:44

the live oak and everything like that. And so yes, it is local.

43:48

And there's also the famous goat cheese, the Rocamadour.

43:52

Annie Sargent: Ah, of course! Elyse Rivin: Which I love.

43:54

Le Rocamadour c'est bonne! So they look like hockey pucks.

43:59

Annie Sargent: Yeah. Elyse Rivin: That's exactly what they look like, you know.

44:01

Annie Sargent: Yeah, but when it gets in your mouth it's a lot nicer hockey puck to the teeth.

44:05

It melts in your mouth better than a hockey puck does, you know, yes.

44:09

Elyse Rivin: Definitely. And walnuts. That's the other thing that's strange is that there's the famous, and I love

44:15

walnuts, there's a famous walnut of Quercy, which is also something that

44:19

grows in this strange kind of climate and on these limestone plateaus.

44:25

And so you have walnuts and walnut oil, which is absolutely delicious.

44:29

I absolutely love it. It's not cheap, but it's just absolutely delicious.

44:32

And every year I buy a kilo or two, a bag of the walnut of Quercy.

44:36

There are two regions of France that grow walnuts, one of them is near

44:40

the Alps, and this was the other one. This is the area.

44:42

Dordogne also has walnuts, no? Yeah.

44:44

Well, I think it's the Quercy kind of overlaps.

44:47

It's kind of like goes both sides, you know? Now they're, of course, they're grown specifically, but they were

44:52

actually just a natural tree, I mean, that grew in the area.

44:56

Then they grafted them to make them more, more edible.

44:59

So, there's the cheese, there's the truffles, there's

45:01

the saffron, there's walnuts. And of course they have this wonderful walnut cake that they make.

45:06

Hmm, Annie Sargent: And the Rocamadour cheese, what you do is you let it

45:10

get to room temperature and then you put a tiny bit of honey on top and

45:15

you sprinkle some chopped up walnuts.

45:20

Ooh, ooh, ooh, it's delicious.

45:22

I'm telling you, it's delicious. And that with a glass of Cahors wine and you're in good, you're happy as can be.

45:29

Elyse Rivin: I'm just thinking one more. Oh, yes, the melon of Quercy, which I love.

45:33

Which one is it? It's like a cantaloupe. It's delicious.

45:35

I love it. But it's pink inside. It's orangey inside.

45:39

Yes. And it's one of the, there are three regions of France that

45:42

produce a melon that Americans would consider to be like a cantaloupe.

45:47

Okay. And this is considered to be the best.

45:50

It's the sweetest. There are melons from Provence, right, the Cavaillon, but the melon of Quercy,

45:56

I'm not sure why, comes at the end, I think, of the season, but it is

46:01

considered to be absolutely delicious. That's probably their problem, because by the end of the season, you've eaten so

46:06

many melons, you're not ready for more, especially if it's really expensive.

46:10

And they have lamb. And, for those who are meat eaters, there is the lamb of Quercy,

46:14

which is a specialty of the area.

46:17

You can have a nice meal from just the things from this area.

46:21

Big surprise, you can have a nice meal in the Lot.

46:24

In the Lot, and not have anything that doesn't grow in the Lot.

46:29

Well, after a few days, you'd want something else.

46:31

Of course. Yeah. Get your little green salad in there somewhere, you know.

46:35

Oh, come on. Take advantage of being in this area and do yourselves a favor and go

46:41

explore because there are some villages that are just absolutely gorgeous.

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And besides seeing the mainstays, the St Cirq Lapopie and things like that, that

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everybody goes to, and they are gorgeous, of course, but they're with zillions of

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people most of the time, you would be surprised at how gorgeous some of these

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other villages are with their chateaus. Yeah, go see the other ones.

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We have a short list here but you said there's 10 of them, I don't think you

47:05

put all 10 show but it's easy enough.

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You know plus beau villages Right.

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Lot Department. And even the ones that are like small towns, big villages,

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they're just beautiful as well. You know, you just go around the corner and you go, oh gosh look at that.

47:22

Annie Sargent: Just go, people just go. Merci beaucoup, Elyse.

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Elyse Rivin: You're welcome, Annie. Au revoir.

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Annie Sargent: The Join Us in France travel podcast is written, hosted,

47:38

and produced by Annie Sargent and Copyright 2024 by AddictedToFrance.

47:44

It is released under a Creative Commons, attribution, non-commercial,

47:49

no derivatives license.