If you're at this spot in the Dordogne, it might be one of these sandwiches. Today, here at home, we're hoping to enjoy a gratin de chou-fleur made with the beautiful cauliflower that Ken got a few days ago.
Did you know that you can eat the greens of a cauliflower? As long as they're fresh looking and trimmed up a little, they're delicious. Ken cooked cauliflower greens in home-made chicken broth yesterday to have along side our lunch. Delicious, and nutritious!
I think it's some variety of sedum. It looks very much like some of the sedum (also known as stonecrop) we have here at home.
This is the weekend we turn our clocks back to winter time. Tomorrow I'll adjust our clocks and timers so that it's done on Sunday morning. It won't be so dark at wake-up time for a while.
This will be the last Rocamadour post for a while as we move on to something completely different. It's a view looking back on the town as we left. Or was it as we arrived? No matter.
It looks like harvesting is pretty much done in the vineyard parcels out back. It won't be long before we see bernache in the stores. That's the very young wine as it begins to ferment. It's sold with a hole in the cap so that the fermentation gases can escape. Bernache has a fizzy character and tastes more like grape juice than wine. I like having a bottle or two each season.
Here's a charming shop at one end of Rocamadour's main street. I don't remember what it was like inside, but I'm sure we had a look.
It looks like our current rainy spell might be over for now. If the skies clear, that will mean we're in store for chilly weather again. The good news: the tarps I put out over the kindling pile and the yard waste pile have not blown away. One is anchored down with bricks, the other with battens, boards, and roof tiles.
This is another photo from that restaurant (yesterday's post) in Rocamadour. Ken did some searching on his blog and found out what we ate that day. It was indeed this restaurant. He had a steak with fries and and a green salad. Our friend Sue had spaghettis à la carbonara, and I, of course, had a pizza, as evidenced by the bottle of spicy pizza oil. I'm so predictable.
I'm not very good at taking photos of people. Especially strangers. I lack the nerve to ask people if I can photograph them, and I'm afraid of being "caught" taking stealthy photos. Like this one. I thought the mother/daughter sunglasses were cool. I pretended to be taking a picture of the pizza oil (that's Ken's camera in the photo). Not a great photo, but it's a good memory.
I want to like this photo, but I'm not sure what I was trying to capture. We did eat lunch in Rocamadour, maybe at this place. I'm a sucker for a pizzeria. Still, I don't remember the meal. That tells me that it was probably okay, not great, but not bad either. Kind of like how I feel about this photo.
The heat has been coming on these past few mornings. Yesterday's morning low was about 8ºC (about 45ºF). This morning it's a little warmer outside, but the radiators are hot.
Here's a street scene along Rocamadour's main street. It's pretty much the only street in town. And it's a pedestrian street (with access, of course, for delivery and service vehicles). One souvenir shop after another begs for your attention (and euros). If it's not a souvenir shop, it's a restaurant, many of which have terraces that overlook the valley below.
This view is looking down from that overlook/walkway in yesterday's post. It's zoomed in a lot.
The wind is still blowing here, but it's nothing like what's going on in Florida right now, thank goodness. Meanwhile, the grape harvest continues. There were hand-pickers in one of the parcels out back yesterday. A mechanical harvester worked several other parcels. It's out there again this morning in the dark. I'm thinking the growers want to get their grapes in before they absorb too much (rain) water.
Yesterday, I posted a photo that included part of the château above Rocamadour and the walkway that juts out above the cliff-side town. This is a view of that walkway from the château, That's Ken and our friend Sue posing out at the end.
A big weather system (named Aitor, I think) went by us over night. We certainly didn't get the brunt of it; I think that happened farther north and east of us. But the wind did howl and the rain came down. The effects of the storm will continue to be felt here into tomorrow as temperatures begin to drop.
At the risk of being repetitive, here's a wider angle version of yesterday's view. That little Panasonic bridge camera I had then (my first digital) had a nifty zoom lens built in.
In 2006, we climbed all the way up to the château and walked out onto that overlook you can see jutting out at the top of the photo. I don't know if I could do that today. I also noticed on the map that there are some elevators available, but I'm not sure of their precise location or how far down they go.
I don't have much to say about these photos. There's plenty of Rocamadour's history on the internet (and Wikipedia in particular) if you're interested. Anything I write here would just be a re-hash of what's already out there. I've visited the place twice. It's mostly shops and restaurants lining the single street through town. In summer, I'll bet that street is crammed with people. There's a parking lot at the bottom of the canyon and visitors can walk up via stairways. There may be a shuttle to carry people up who can't walk, but beyond that main street it's stair-climbing all the way.
We had showers on and off most of yesterday. One, around 19h00 or 20h00 was a hum-dinger. It lasted about ten minutes then stopped as abruptly as it had started. Our recently repaired roof seems to be holding up. Knock on wood!
Rocamadour is a picturesque town, clinging to the side of a cliff face in the valley of a Dordogne tributary, the Alzou. The site has been inhabited since prehistoric times, became well known as a religious pilgrimage site in the middle ages, and has since transformed into more of a tourist destination.
Rain is predicted off and on during the week and our high temperatures
are getting lower. It's not really cold, though. It feels like fall!
Another Dordogne Valley castle, this time Montfort. French Wikipedia has an extensive timeline of historical information if you're interested (there's also a link to a summary in English). Apparently, the castle was fought over a lot, destroyed and rebuilt at least four times in its history.
Today is the autumnal equinox, the beginning of fall for those who prefer the astronomical way of defining the seasons. From now until next spring, each day will bring more darkness than daylight.
Here's another version of the abstract from yesterday. Again, it's one of the crenelated walls and tower at the château de Beynac in the Dordogne.
We had a strange and unexpected rain shower around mid-morning yesterday. The rain fell straight down; there was no wind. And the sun shone the whole time. At one point, we could see it raining out front but not out back. We were precisely on the edge of the shower, and we confirmed that with a look at the radar images online. Even with all that sun, I didn't see a rainbow.
Consequently, I didn't go out to finish cutting the grass. Too wet. Maybe today, but there's more rain in the forecast. It's not essential that it get done now; the grass is not going wild. The cool weather we had in the past few weeks slowed its growth.
I know I've posted this before, probably back in 2006. It's a section of the roof line of the château de Beynac, cut and copied and pasted to form this kaleidoscope-like image.
Grass was cut yesterday! Not all of it, though, so I'll be out there again today to finish up. Depending on how the weather unfolds, this could be the last cut of the year. I have cut the grass in October and November before, so that's not unheard of. We shall see!
It's the massive château de Beynac again, this time zoomed in for more detail.
They keep adding moons. This latest one is the "partially-eclipsed-full-harvest-super moon." Really. What's next? The not-so-full blue moon of Kentucky? The late-harvest moon over Miami? The it's-only-a-paper moon? The Hepburn river moon? The hits-your-eye-like-a-big-pizza-pie moon? The fly-me-to-the-new moon? In other words, I could go on.
Here's another one of the famous Dordogne castles. Ken and I, along with our friend Sue, parked down by the river and walked (climbed) up the narrow streets to the castle above. We didn't go inside, though. Probably in a hurry to get somewhere else. And châteaux start to look alike after a (short) while.
I may get it together to cut the grass today. Or tomorrow. We'll see how the spirit moves me.
It's really no mystery, it's just that I haven't made an effort to identify it. UPDATE: Ken used the Google photo ID app to identify the château. It's the Château do Fayrac.
I did get some yard work done yesterday which I hope is part of the prelude to cutting the grass later this week. I cut down the fading artichoke stalks and added them to the pile of yard waste that I've made where the vegetable garden usually goes. Then I covered the pile with a tarp so it doesn't turn into a soggy rotting mess before I can get rid of it. I did some weed whacking along the back yard path and I applied some herbicide to the tree stumps in the north forty where weeds are brambles are trying to take hold. They're sprouting where the mower can't reach.
A typical sight in the Dordogne Valley. I can't tell you which castle this is. I probably should do the research and try to figure it out. But I'm too lazy and it's my morning to walk Tasha (maybe those two things cancel each other out, but I'm too lazy to... you get it).
We're still in the chilly zone. Two of our neighbors (four of us in the hamlet have riding mowers) have cut their grass in the past two days. Over achievers. I think it's too cold and a little to wet to be riding around on the mower, and I'm lazy (see above), so I'm waiting for the predicted warmer, dryer days ahead. I hope the forecasters are right.
Not to be outdone by the chickens, goslings (baby geese) were also roaming free at this place we visited not far from Sarlat. These particular goslings look like they're enjoying some down time. Tuckered out from all that running around, I suppose.
It's still chilly this morning and the heat came on again. It doesn't stay on long, just enough to bump the temperature up a degree or so. They say we're in for a warm up soon. I can see the grass growing.
