Arrondissement de Marmande

Finishing yesterday, and Amr’s birthday dinner - it was lovely, but simple. They only do dinner for hotel guests, and we were the only guests…so we went down and there was a table set for us. Lovely man and woman run the hotel, and we had a lentil soup (like the other day when there was an additional soup course)…which was delicious, then a “panna cotta” of tomato with a basil cream sauce, then beef with potatoes and carrots, and finishing with a fancy patisserie plate…not gourmet, but very satisfying. And for breakfast we had the usual fare but with a bowl of coffee for the first time, and I think it was also the best coffee so far. In the morning there were quite a few people coming in for coffee or breakfast.

So we set off in a taxi with our bags at 9 and were dropped at Caplong, which gave us 21 kms to walk to Coutures. We are now in a new area and the signage changed slightly but was very good and reliable. This part is called Entre-Deux-Mers, because it is between the Dordogne and Garonne rivers, neither of which we saw, but it is just all vineyards…we are in the Bordeaux wine growing area, and it was quite an amazing day. It took a little while of normal countryside walking before we found we were surrounded by vineyards which just continued in every direction most of the day. We noticed that some of the vines were grape free, and thought the harvest was over, then there were many laden with grapes, it ended about 50-50 that we saw, but to our delight we saw the huge grape picking machine in action in one vineyard. And we could hear others now that we knew what was happening. And there were many tractors with large carts along the roads coming to collect the grapes. Lots of activity. And we passed some huge wineries that looked like factories, and wine tankers on the road. Anyway, it was quite an exciting day, and fun to be watching some of the action. Interspersed now and then were fields of beheaded sunflower stalks - we even saw a man on a tractor shredding his sunflower stalks - the only time we saw non vineyard activity!

And it was so beautiful…vineyards always look picturesque, and the ones that had been harvested stood in such neat rows as if they had had a hair cut…well they sort of had - no poking out branches! And we had some forest walks too, always gorgeous. The walk ended up being a bit longer than the 21 kms on our plan, as our pilgrim route followed the GR path where our map said it separated - but the good signage told us to do it, and I think it was probably a more picturesque way, but ended up being a few kms longer…so we walked 23 kms.

We discovered this when we were at St Ferme about 5 kms from here, but had thought we only had 3 kms left…it was just fine, and not very different, but you get into a mentality that you have almost finished and you haven’t! But we popped into st Ferme to see the huge old Benedictine abbey, which seems to be used as the Mairie now - or the adjoining building.

We easily found our BandB and again we have a character as hostess, who is now cooking dinner, and washing our clothes!! She was mowing the lawn when we arrived and was expecting us. We are the only guests tonight which is a good thing as her accommodation, which is lovely, is an upstairs barn with about 4 beds with screens dividing them, and a screened off bathroom. Perfect for us, but rather intimate with strangers! And there is a precipitous ladder leading up to it so we have just taken up what we need, and our bags remain downstairs, as they will be in no one’s way. Our hostess, who Amr says is called Rose, will be having dinner with us, and then she is leaving (she lives 15 kms away) and we will get our own breakfast, let a taxi pick up our bags at 8am and set off ourselves, as she will be in Bordeaux visiting her grandchildren! Perfect for us!Okumaya devam et