Monday May 26, 2014 - Padirac Chasm - Le Moulin de Cougnaguet - Day 26

Up early - breakfast with Alain and a French couple from Toulouse.  She told stories of her elderly parents who are 92 and 93 and how manipulative her mother is - "If you leave town, you'll come home to find two very dead, smelly corpses in the house and you won't be able to get in the door"!  Oh my!  We enjoyed talking to them.

At the end of breakfast, Alain spoke in French that we had been speaking "English" at breakfast today.  I understood.  To this the woman from Toulouse responded in French to Alain, "No, we have been speaking Americain!"  I understood that too!!!!

Alain gave me recommendations on some good local wines from the Cahors Region:  Chateau Cedre, Chateau Lagrezette and Chateau Pineraie.  We tried to find them in Gramat but couldn't.

We left about 10 for Padirac Chasm - Le Gouffre de Padirac.  It rained all day so we thought it would be good doing this cave to avoid the rain outside - WRONG!  It rains INSIDE the Padirac Chasm also, and with all of the rain outside it was even heavier.  The place was stunning.  The cave was discovered over 100 years ago when the top of the cave collapsed.  They showed us 2 km of cave but the underground river flows 19 km where it is deposited into the Dordogne River.  They have explored more than 42 km of this network and still haven't found it all.  Amazing what's under the earth.

Looking into the chasm from above

Beautiful waterfalls spilling into the caves below

It was special having the rain outside today and watching it fall into the large cave

We walked down the 560 steps to the bottom of the chasm (Tim was surprised that I wanted to walk down) and then made our way through many pathway in the caves.  Then we got on a boat and had a ride through the caves.  At the end there was a guided tour of the massive caverns that they believe were created over 1,000,000 years ago.  No one lived in these caves as they were hidden and an underground river until the top collapsed.  It was wet and 56 degrees down there.  My hat was soaked when we finished with all of the rain and water falling around.

Martel who discovered the caves in 1898

 

This picture is on its side (couldn't get it to load properly) but shows some of the wonderful colors and formations in the Padirac Chasm

A brochure for the Padirac Chasm showing some of the beautiful rock formations started 1,000,000 years ago!

 

We were cold and wet so had a coffee when we got back up.  It was about 12:30 and we decided to have a light lunch at a brasserie at the Chasm - it was good. 

Since we had extra time and it was still pouring rain, we decided to go to Le Moulin de Cougnaguet - the fortified watermill - that we had skipped on our program a couple of days ago.  It was so much fun and interesting.  It was founded in the 13th century by monks and provided flour to the pilgrims who were trekking to Rocamadour.

The "tour guide" was a hoot - he spoke no English and did the tour in a thick French accent but he pointed out the sites on a small English guide that we had asked for.  He was so enthusiastic in his presentation and his dog followed him everywhere (wanting to play).  I have seen many mill stones in my life but have never seen how one actually works.  The guide was an older man who was an employee and he took great delight in showing us the mill and how all of the elements worked to grind the flour.  At the end he took us upstairs and showed us the old living quarters and gave us a shot of some REALLY STRONG liquor and cracked walnuts.  This was really FUN.

Our guide explaining the mill stone - the grain goes in at the top and flows between the mill stones and is grown.  They have adjustments to make it fine or not.

Flour coming out of the mill stone operation

The sifters - separating the flour into fine, medium, or coarse flour

The old mill house dating to the 13th century

The river upstream from the mill

The entrance to the "mill race" where the water enters the old mill

Then we had errands to do.  We found a bank - a gas station that would take my credit card (this has been an issue since my debit card doesn't have a chip) - and a wine store.  We were looking for the wines that Alain had recommended but this was a cooperative and they didn't carry them.  But they did have spigots to fill buckets with wine for customers - we've never seen this in the U.S.

We then headed back in the rain to the B&B about 4 for a relaxing afternoon.  About 7:30 we headed into Rocamadour for dinner - we want to see it at night and Alain has recommended Jehan de Valon for dinner.  We got the last table since we hadn't called for reservations.  It had a beautiful view of the valley below Rocamadour.  Dinner was great.  Tim had fois gras (the real stuff) and loved it.  Then we both had fish cooked in paper - good.  We parked at the bottom of the valley and walked up to dinner, so we got to walk back down (much easier) after dinner.  It was still light at 10 pm but a heavy fog was settling into the valley.  It was pretty.  An easy drive home - and we both commented that there was NO traffic on the roads - we passed only one car the entire 20 minute drive.

The evening mist coming into the valley below Rocamadou

Another great day.  I packed up when we got back to Domaine du Cloucau.  Tomorrow off to Bordeaux.  YEAH!