A visit to the city of Limoges

We had been in the countryside for over a week and since the Indian summer had come to an end, we decided to head into Limoges and explore the city. With a population of 130,000 its big but not too big and we are able to park close to the main Marche Halle in the centre of town. We could have actually stayed there for two nights, as my helpful parking meter assistant plugged in the max €9.95, which covered 48 hours!

The Marche was busy and very sophisticated with several little bars, one with tapas and one with oysters and champagne, as well as some diverse international food stalls, a great Morrocan food stall, and a Cambodian stall. It was the cleanest market we have ever seen. Sadly we'd indulged in an indulgent specialty biscuit at the nearby coffee shop so there was no room for more tastings.

We walked through the old town which was mostly closed as it was the sacred lunch hour - 12noon- 2pm and meandered down to the river past some quite nice designer shops which reminded me of Bordeaux. At the bottom of the hill, below the cathedral, we came across Pont-Saint Marshall, which was the Pilgrims bridge as Limoges is directly on the path of the French Camino.

We had 20 minutes to kill, so decided on the only open bar within a 5km radius. It was a Sports Bar, called 'The Dropkick Bar'. You could have been in any Sports bar in the world - they are all the same. Our saving grace, we were the only ones there! You could imagine it pumping on a sunny afternoon in summer as it was right on the riverfront.

Our final destination was the Four des Casseaux,
a museum tracing the local Porcelain making history in a 19th century factory with a large circular brick kiln. With family connections to ceramics, pottery and kilns, the museum was a great example of another refined craft, still in existence in Europe. The large gift shop had many dinner services for sale, with dinner plates averaging €36. Beautiful to look at, but I'm not sure I could ever use them for fear of breaking them.

We made our way home before the rain set in and on Sunday morning had a phone call from Emma Lou to let us know the builders would be starting on Monday 4th May. She will be flying over to La Rochelle, where we will pick her up on our way back from the Loire Valley. Great excitement prevails.

There was also great relief when Roger sighted Louise, one of the barn cats who had not turned up for dinner on Saturday night. Did the sly fox catch her? had she succumbed to ticks? (we had twisted 5 off young Tinks and 3 from Esme during the week), or did she decide the housesitters were not up to scratch and just leave home! No one will ever know but at least she came home.

A clean up of our house and one last walk through the forest with my best friends, Poppy and Tinks, before Christine arrived back from the UK. With bags in the car, we set off and had an uneventful drive 2hrs 40 mins home to Les Petites Rivieres.Read more