We left Villefranche-de-Rouergue mid-day and drove about an hour to the Grotte prehistorique de Pech-Merle. The roads were certainly rural and the country side was lovely. Now that we have left the Aveyron region I see how amazing it was. The quaint villages and old stone houses that appear everywhere in Aveyron, each calling out for exploration, are much less frequent in the region we are staying in now. The drive to the Pech-Merle caves however, was wonderful, with the roads often running alongside, and wedged between a river and a cliff face. A few of the photos below show this.

Wk8 Montaigu de Quercy Trip 2012-04-07 16.11.14

Wk8 Montaigu de Quercy Triip IMG_5717

Wk8 Montaigu de Quercy Trip IMG_5719

Wk8 Montaigu de Quercy Trip 2012-04-07 16.10.51

Karen and the kids went on the cave tour while I waited in the car. It was a good opportunity for me to catch up some reading while looking after our gear. We had intended to arrive at Montaigu de Quercy around 4pm but we didn’t leave the caves until about that time. The next part of our journey took about 2 hours and when we arrived it was raining and miserable outside. Thankfully the owner had left two gas heaters on keeping the house warm. I was a little disappointed initially because the houses and the area is not as spectacular as Villefranche-de-Rouergue and I wondered if I had made my first slip up in my planning for our trip. Now however I am happy and starting to quite like the region. Montaigu de Quercy is a nice small village about 10 minutes drive from where we are staying. Our house is an old farm house which has been renovated to some degree perhaps 10 years ago. More correctly we are staying in Touffailles not Montaigu de Quercy; Touffailles however, is an even smaller village just down the road. There are 3 or 4 villages/towns within about quarter of an hour’s drive.

Wk8 Montaigu de Quercy House IMG_5737

Wk8 Montaigu de Quercy House IMG_5739

Wk8 Montaigu de Quercy House IMG_5736

Wk8 Montaigu de Quercy House IMG_5734

Wk8 Montaigu de Quercy House IMG_5732

Wk8 Montaigu de Quercy House IMG_5731

As it was Easter this weekend I wanted to make a special effort to get to a church so on Sunday we drove into Montaigu de Quercy and went to the local Catholic church with its service totally in French. Apart from recognising a few keys words and the music to Amazing Grace we didn’t understand anything spoken. Personally I enjoyed the experience and the time to contemplate the great depths in which God has gone to reconcile humanity through the incarnated Christ’s life, death and resurrection. At the end of church we met a family from Bordeaux who we hope to visit tomorrow evening at their home. It is a two hour drive to Bordeaux so we will need to leave early and won’t get back here until around 11pm. I will update this blog later in the week about that trip. Finally, I should add, we had a nice coffee with the owners of our house, they live about 15 minutes away, on Sunday afternoon and will be visiting them on Thursday.

To be continued …

[Week 8, 7/4/2012-14/4/2012]