Beside the Lot
Friday evening

We are beside the Lot, in St Sylvestre, which is just outside Villeneuve-sur-Lot. It is a warm evening with bright sunshine and we are about to have some local cab-sav with some incredibly (!) smelly cheese (smells really bad; tastes really good). We hope that your bit of the world is good too!

Since leaving the busy city of Bordeaux, we've slowed down.  We stayed three nights in a small lakeside caravan park at Casteljaloux. From there we made a day trip to Nerac (after a brief stop on the way for coffee at Lavardac [or 'Luv-a duck' as Rob calls it] to see the Roman bridge) which we loved.  There have been serious floods in the last couple of weeks and the canal-barge business is not operating due to the number of damaged locks and boats.  And of course the rest of the economy is also affected.  We had lunch at a little place beside the river, which was much quieter than usual.

Yesterday was drizzly and therefore very low-key for us.  We rode our bikes from the lake into town for coffee and watched in amazement as huge semis rumbled through the narrow streets that are further restricted by the setting-up of carnival rides, (dodgems, merry-go-rounds and the like) on and overflowing from the tiny square.  We think it's challenging driving the van through such streets, so we are filled with admiration for the men and women driving such huge vehicles.

Today a strange thing happened.  I thought I'd asked TomTom to bring us through Villeneuve, but somehow he misunderstood and seemed to be skirting the town.  In doing so, we went through Pujols, a tiny medieval village on a high hilltop overlooking Villeneuve.  It is fantastic!  We had great food, astoundingly beautiful surroundings, brilliant sunshine and the time to enjoy them all.  Here's our lunch spot..

Good on TomTom for taking us there; but after all, he does get his instructions from the heavens.

And here's the view of the Lot from our campsite this evening ...

Regards from Judy and Rob