Rocamadour
Tuesday evening

We're still in the general area of the Lot, which we think is beautiful.  Here's the look of the countryside from Penne across the Lot valley so that you can see why we like it so much:

We used our campground at St Sylvestre as a base for a bit of exploring, making sure we visited Agen, Condom, Villeneuve-sur-Lot and some of the areas to the south, and now we've let Tomtom bring us by narrow mountainous back roads to Rocamadour.

Although quite touristy, Rocamadour amazes us.  It's on the ancient pilgrim trail and the town, sanctuary (church) and chateau are grafted one above the other into the side of a vertical cliff.  If you buy real estate here you would need to look at more than just a plan view because the vertical dimension is at least as significant as the horizontal ones.  Here's an overall view:

In an echo of 'Daddy Cool' they even have a place called Rocher des Aigles! 

We had a great lunch of Confit du Canard today so decided on a lighter meal this evening.  And, just our luck, there's a lovely little restaurant over the road from the caravan park.  We'd just gone in to a table at the window when there was a commotion outside.  There was sudden wind, huge hailstones (most a bit bigger than a marble, a few the size of golf balls), followed by heavy rain and all the outside diners came rushing inside.  And of course a moment later all the lights went out!  But the chaos was short-lived and we soon had perfect omelettes, cider and creme brulee.  The outside tables were under large awnings which were under even larger cherry trees, laden with fruit so when the chaos subsided the outdoor eating area was strewn with the hail, a few leaves and a lot of ripe cherries.

We're not sure where we'll be writing from next but we're keen to have a look at the meandering stretch of the Lot just west of Cahors, so we think we'll head there tomorrow.

We're getting the occasional email from family and friends and have been enjoying catching up on people's news.

J and R