Christmas Markets on the Elbe: Treasures of Dresden
We were already underway when I woke up, on our way from Meissen to Dresden. Along the way, we heard a musical salute and knew we were passing Beyla’s sister ship on the Elbe, the Astrid, headed from Prague to Berlin. She is the only ship we passed the entire five days cruising on the Elbe, other than ships passing in the larger cities.
Our bus did a tour of Dresden neighborhoods, which also allowed for some history, and then got to the Zwinger and the old city of Prague. We toured the museum full of wonders (it’s an amazing thing to be a king, to contract wonderful works of gold and baroque pearls, crystal, cut gems, silver – and the largest green diamond in the world.)
I found Dresden to be an elegant and spirited city. The total destruction of the city by the Allied bombers toward the end of WWII, when it was already clear that the war was almost over, was devastating. Years later, there was rubble everywhere. The citizens of Dresden had hidden many of the city treasures in cellars, in the ground, in all kinds of places, and although many were plundered, some fabulous pieces still remain. I’m inspired to re-read Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five.
Dresden has rebuilt. Much of what looks old is actually rebuilt, re-using the rubble remaining after the bombing. This is what I mean by spirit. Years after the Russian occupation and the dreary years of the GDR, Dresden is like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, glorious, and incorporating the old to build the new. I admire that spirit.
The Dresden Opera house, made to look like the original, but much larger.
We heard the porcelain bell concert as the clock reached 10:15. Delightful! Impressive!
This is the Zwinger Palace courtyard; I don’t show the courtyard because the gardens are all torn up. Even with the snow cover, it is a mess.
Imagine being a ruler with so much wealth to spend on these luxurious objects.
This carved ivory piece reminds me of the design of the iconic Kuwait water towers.
LOL you get a chance to see my clunky walking shoes. I’ve been wearing them on every tour since Sans Souci. They keep me comfortable and safe.
A huge green diamond
As we left the museum, we told our guide we would not be returning to the ship with the group, and we took off, exploring the very crowded old Striezelmarkt, full of families and friends drinking gluhwein. One of the best places we found was a booth selling the wine we had found, a Saxon wine, Schloss Wackerbarth. We had a bottle with us on board the Beyla, and I really liked it.
That is a whole ox they are turning on the spit.
Dresden had some of the most unique shops and decorations we saw on the whole trip.
Took a lot of photos, bought nothing, and found a brewery serving duck where we had lunch. It was full of locals, and us. We were near a rowdy bunch, having a great time, and the two in Santa hats allowed me to take their photos.
Leaving there, we found our way to the Medieval Christmas Market in the old stable area.
We had to pay 5 Euros each but it was worth it – the drama of kettle drums and the smells of oxen grilling, vendors of iron works being sold by the blacksmith, glassware sets, each unique and beautiful, medieval games, tankards of different kinds of hot brews, including one “gleubier” (we didn’t try it). Lots of kids, lots of fun going on, consumed players, a lot like a Medieval Knights Tournament or Renaissance Fair.
That’s a huge rocking pig the children are riding.
Then on to the Frauenkirch market, very similar to the non-medieval markets, but where we were able to access a cash machine for our daily allotment of Euros.
From there, a ten-minute slippery walk to the boat as the snow became heavier and we became happier to be going inside to a warm place. We have good weather gear, but after a while, the wind finds its way to your bones, especially when the humidity goes up and the temperatures go down.
Dresden interests me. Of all the places we have visited, this is the place I want to come back for a longer visit.
The boat is lovely and warm, and we are happy we did all that we did today, and equally happy now to settle in. We need to finish the Schloss Wackerbarth wine we bought in Berlin before we leave the ship in Shandau, so we will fill our glasses and take them to the port talk tonight.
Christmas Markets on the Elbe: Wittenberg
Off to Wittenberg, where our guide Christian takes us first to the old Catholic Church where Martin Luther posted his 95 theses, against practices of the Catholic Church which, according to his reading of scriptures, were just wrong and needed to be corrected. He did not intend to create a schism or a new religion. So here is the portal where there once was a door that is no more, burned in a fire, where Luther posted his 95 theses requesting correction of wrong-doings by the church.
From there, visited various neighborhoods in Wittenberg, visiting Martin Luther’s home with Katerina Von Bora (a wondrous woman Luther referred to as his morning star, a hilarious reference with a double entendre, as a morning star is also a lethal medieval cudgel with pointed spikes on its head.
We ended up downtown at St. Mary’s, the church where Martin Luther preached, a beautiful fine place, more simple and much less elaborate than the Catholic Church. Christian gave us so much information; that I am now not able to keep it all straight.
I am grinning because someone had made a snowball and tucked it in Katarina’s curled hand. It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it! But it did give me a grin.
Below is the church where Martin Luther preached, after being excommunicated from the church and marrying Katarina Von Bora, who escaped a nunnery with several other women not interested in being nuns.
He told us about Luther’s anti-Semitism, in the context of the times, and of the town and the church’s continuing attempts to find redemption in coordination with its Jewish community. Christian told us about the tragic waste of the holocaust, how it hurt all humanity, and that the German people are determined that such a mindset will never again take hold in today’s Germany. We can only hope.
This time, we were successful in obtaining money from the ATM. We wandered through the Christmas Market and found our way back to the bus. We had a short trip to meet up once again with the Beyla, which in our absence, had transferred to the little town of Zahna-Elster. We quickly cleaned up, ate lunch and the Beyla left Zahna-Elster to make our way up the Elbe to Torgau, where the American Forces and Russian forces met near the end of World War II.
For the first time since our departure on Monday, we have had some time to breathe. We strolled through the lounge, admiring all the decorated Christmas trees, we organized our room, participated in the safety drill, and met up once again with Janice and Don. It was over very quickly, we came back to our cabin and as my husband napped, I uploaded photos, caught up with correspondence, and organized my thoughts to begin this journal of our journey.
I went to the nearby coffee and tea station, which also has three kinds of cookies, to pick up some chocolate cookies before I woke my husband (his favorite cookies). We gathered in the lounge for the Port Talk with Eva, as she briefed us on tomorrow’s excursions and events. After that, there is a walk into Torgau to view the memorial.
We went early enough to get good seats for the Port Talk, but as my husband decided he would go after all (he hadn’t wanted to get so cold again), and I decided not to go – Eve had emphasized how slippery it was and that anyone with mobility problems might not want to go, and that Torgau is always the coldest place she has ever visited, LOL. I thought “I’ll just skip this one.”
I snuggled under the featherbed, happy not to be out hiking in the dark.
Mesa Verde, Cliff House Loop and Coyote Village
We decide to head back to Mesa Verde for our last full day and see some of the sights we didn’t get to yesterday. We started with the Cliff House loop, and were amazed to see how many people were there before us. There was a bus full of Italians, and a bus full of French people. There were all kinds of people our age waiting for the Ranger tour of the Cliff House; you need reservations and the numbers are limited. We did it the last time so felt comfortable skipping it this time, and went on to view other sites, some of which were open, and some not.
The most productive site for us was the Far View site, where archeologists have excavated much of a village and reservoir from ancient times.
The Docent Ranger tells us that they may have to close the exhibit soon because some of the walls are so fragile that even with careful visitors, the stress on ancient stones and foundations are too fragile to survive the number of visitors, which is affecting their condition.
We were able to see the storage rooms and the kivas. People talk about the ceremonial functions of the kivas – they look to me like they had functional purposes, perhaps keeping people out of the heat and out of the elements, perhaps gatherings, yes, and it made me think of Thanksgiving and how a very casual gathering could be described as ceremonial.
I think we toss that word around too lightly. I think we are often discussing customary, daily doings and elevating these daily rituals by calling them ceremonial. Am I ceremonial while I wash my dishes, or hang my laundry? Do I ceremonially cook our dinner?
I love visiting these sites and having these conversations in my head.
We take a chance on getting a table at the Absolute Bakery in Mancos, a place we love. Very casual, everything home made and delicious, and we are lucky, they have enlarged and have a room in the back which they open for us, and then others, too.
Back at the cabin, we finish off the spaghetti and garlic bread back at the cabin for our last dinner in Cortez, and the last few bites of Gustavo’s lemon pie. I check with Cecilia and Alison about what is required for check out (every B&B has its own requirements) and they tell me just to leave our food, that they will use what they can and take care of the rest. We won’t be doing our own cooking for the rest of the trip.
Hovenweep, Canyon of the Ancients and Petroglyphs
We are still sore from our climb the previous day, but we don’t want to waste a minute of our precious time in this area, so we head for the Canyon of the Ancients Monument early in the morning. Oops, not early enough.
We discovered Sand Canyon is a place to park and then you hike in. We saw busloads full of schoolchildren, and then we saw a person with a horse carrier unload his horse to ride into the canyon. Nope – too many people for me, and no guide.
We headed down the road to a petroglyph site, which was small and more than half defaced or updated with more recent writings, one from 1949.
Then on to Hovenweep, which was very exciting, very satisfying, an entire valley of ancient Pueblo houses, with various architectural styles, on an easy hike around the valley.
(A different perspective of Sleeping Ute Mountain)
We hiked around to the Tower House, taking photos and also enjoying the spring flowers in their colorful glory. Hovenweep is a beautiful park, with a smooth easy trail, even wheelchair accessible to the first overlook. The rest of it is too extreme for wheelchairs, but an easy walk for most people.
Leaving Hovenweep, we took a northern road toward Dolores, a small town with an old railroad depot, and the Dolores River running through it. They have a very good museum and visitors center there, but for the time being it is closed for renovations. On our way to lunch, looking for the restaurant, we were stopped by a very polite police officer who reminded us we were in a school zone (we totally missed the sign but we were going slow, just not slow enough.) AdventureMan remembers it as being stopped by Leaphorn, (from Dark Winds). Yes. He really believes that.
We had lunch in Dolores at a Mexican restaurant called Montezuma, where I had a burrito and AM had enchiladas, both with beans and rice, and very Mexican.
Heading back through Cortez, we stopped again at City Market to find supplies for our anticipated trek to the Ute Indian reservation park the next day, picking up a loaf of bread and some Comte, locally made.
Back to our peaceful cabin, and a dinner of pasta aglio oglio, with garlic bread and salad.
Exploring Kelley’s Ancient Echoes
I got up early, caught up on e-mails, and lectionary readings, then AdventureMan got up and we had breakfast. We dressed for hiking, took our full water bottles and headed out, eager to explore the grounds at Ancient Echoes at Kelly’s. The Canyon of the Ancients is in our backyard! We are good hikers, confident hikers. We are eager!
We visited the old pueblo house and the underground kiva, saw Cecelia, one of the owners, making mounds for planting corn, beans and squash (the three sisters of the ancients in these parts), and asked her some questions about the grounds, and then headed off past the casitas, past up into the hills to visit more ancient ruins. It was shady and cool, and an easy path. “Just follow the cairns” Cecelia had told us, to the top of the ridge. Keep your eye on the spire.
We crossed the arroyo and headed up and down the trail until we reached the barbed wire at the top of the ridge, passing the ancient ruins. Deciding to turn back – it was getting hotter – we backtracked, following cairns (rocks piled in a deliberate style to guide trekkers) we crossed the arroyo and headed for a cairn on the opposite ridge. It was much more difficult, as we had to find a diagonal way up a sheer red stone face, which, huffing and puffing, we did.
Looking for the next cairn, AM found a circle of stones, and we looked at each other – we didn’t remember seeing a circle of stones before. We couldn’t find any more cairns, either. We roamed back and forth on the ridge, circling back to a tree where we would rest. It kept getting hotter, and our water was running shorter. In the steeper areas we were rock climbing, on hands and knees, not as easy as when we were younger. We crossed to the next ridge, from which we could see Kelly’s camp clearly, see our own suite clearly, but from which we could not descend because it was steep and ended in an overhang with a drop.
Finally, knowing where we needed to be, we headed back to the arroyo, and down the arroyo a little farther where we found our missing trail. We were so delighted to find our way home again after being on the trail over three hours more than a little afraid we would be “those elderly people who were found by the rescue team.” We were so thankful when we found the right trail. We were probably dehydrated as well as exhausted. We fell into bed and slept, awakening stiff from climbing up and down the hills and arroyo. We finished our BBQ sandwiches and spent the afternoon reading and relaxing.
Re-energized, we went into Cortez for dinner at the Farm Bistro, a popular local restaurant specializing in local sourcing. I had a yak burger, made from real local yaks, and AM had the French Onion soup and an Antipasto platter, with local meats and cheeses. It was very good, and a relaxing way to end our day.
We found the City Market and picked up parsley and garlic bread for the next day, and gassed up the car.
In the middle of the night, I heard the weirdest scratching, like something was in the walls. It woke AM, too, and we banged on the walls and told it to go away – and it did, then it would come back again. After about an hour and a half, we made it feel unwelcome enough that it never came back, and we allowed ourselves to sleep in. We told the owners the next morning. I don’t know what they did, but we were never bothered again.
Kelly’s Ancient Echoes in Cortez
Every now and then you just get really lucky, and that is how we feel about finding Kelly’s Ancient Echoes, in Cortez. We had a lot of hiking and exploring we wanted to do, and we wanted a stable location, comfortable, where we could eat our own breakfasts and do our own cooking and where we had privacy and a view. You don’t always get what you want, as the Rolling Stones say, but this time we got what we need – and what we want.
From Silverton to Cortez was beautiful, full of hot springs and mountains, and zipping past Mesa Verde because we wanted to pick up some groceries and get to our hotel in Cortez before nightfall. We are at Ancient Echoes at Kelly’s, a boutique hotel backing right up to the Canyon of the Ancients national park, and having two ancient sites right on the property.
Our rental is beautiful and spacious, and the owners greet us warmly, providing us with all sorts of information to enhance our five-day stay. We have an outdoor dining area that overlooks Sleeping Ute Mountain. There are two dogs, and at least one cat on the grounds, and trails leading back into the canyons beyond.
It is very private, very quiet, except for the calling birds as the sun goes down, and the distant lowing of the cows next door as they are led to their barn. We feel very welcome, and very very happy to be staying here. In our refrigerator are a large jar of delicious-smelling coffee beans, another jar labeled organic local cream, and a carton of local organic eggs. The cupboard is full of spices, extra virgin olive oil, vinegar, and tamari. There are dishes, pots and pans, and wine glasses for our use. It makes us so happy we found this place.
We had picked up BBQ sandwiches at the Handlebar, which we had for dinner, and they were so big, we couldn’t eat them all and had plenty for another meal.
We love this place. It is SO quiet, so private, so beautiful. And tomorrow we get to explore!
The Ute Tribal Museum in Montrose, Colorado
Our next stop was the Ute Tribal Museum in Montrose, a two-hour stop in a museum full of meaningful information on Ute daily life, the long history of the Utes on this continent, and the shameful treatment they received at the hand of our government, cynically breaking treaties and steadily eroding Ute territorial holdings.
There are all kinds of educational segments using materials to give a hands-on understanding of how teepees were raised, for example, and how beading was accomplished.
There were weaponry displays and best of all, there were many short visual film segments on a variety of topics, including a 22-minute film on the Bear Dance, which was absolutely fascinating. They had a gift shop full of wonderful jewelry and art pieces, as well as the usual books and souvenirs.
The Ute Museum was one of the highlights of our trip. It came at just the right time, as we were still at the beginning of our trip, and could relate much of what we learned to what we saw along the way.
Be Still My Heart
The Dow Jones Industrial average just went over 30,000 for the first time, ever, skyrocketing on the prospect of a peaceful transition, some predictability taking place of our four years of chaos, and some civility.
I am watching Joe Biden intruduce his new cabinet nomineees. Everyone is masked, and between each speaker an aide is wiping down the surfaces on th podium.
The words they speak thrill my heart:
Service
Diplomacy
Foreign Policy/ National Security / Allies
Respect
Opportunity
Telling Truth to Power
Unite America; Belief in America’s Ideals – Democracy, Rule of Law
Commitment
Reflecting the best of our nation
Truth, Facts, Science
There are women at the table. There are brown people at the table. There are humble, talented white men at the table. My heart sings. They are warriors, looking realistically at the challenges ahead and ready to do whatever they need to do to rebuild the American dream for ALL citizens.
These are people who work quietly, persistently and modestly in service to their country, and are willing to put in the hard work to achieve hard-gained successes.
I’m excited. I dream of a better tomorrow.
Domme: One of the Best Days in the Dordogne
That title is misleading. We had so many best days, but later in this post you will learn why this one sticks out in my memories. Some days of the trip are cloudy, like “which day did we do this?” Other memories come out crystal clear.
(I just spent an hour of my life learning about Google’s Activity record – holy smokes! – and how, if I had had my location tracker turned on, I might have been able to provide you with the hilariously indirect routes we ended up on getting from place to place in the Dordogne. I am tempted. I don’t live a life with anything I need to hide. And yet, the thought of being TRACKED and a record being kept makes me uneasy.)
So arriving in Dome is kind of Wizard-of-Oz-y. It’s a very old city, built on a high hill, and streets are old and narrow. It’s sort of like those labyrinth puzzles you used to do as a kid when you needed to get from here to there. In this case, we totally depended on the Google lady, who said “turn right here” or “go 100 feet, turn left and then immediately right at the next street.” Getting from the entry gate, at the bottom of the hill, to L’Esplanade, at the top of the hill, was an exercise in indirection and circularity.
We got to the top. We could see our hotel. We had read about the parking, that there was no parking at the hotel and if you were very lucky, there might be parking on the street. There was not a single parking spot on the street. Even this late in the season, there were many tourists, and tourist buses, and some had drivers parked in no-parking places, with the engine on, ready to go and circle the city if the police came.
We decided to park in the pay lot, which had a lot of spaces. The night before, we had prepared our carry-bags with enough clothes for dinner and the next day, so we didn’t have to carry in our bags. It took us about 15 minutes to figure out the instructions. We put in the maximum in coins – I think 5 Euro, and that would take us to seven PM, when if we saw a parking space, we would move the car, and if we didn’t, we would put more money into the machine.
When we walked in, we received a very cordial and friendly greeting; the receptionist was Dutch and spoke English wonderfully. She told us that at seven, the parking machines are no longer monitored, and we are safe until ten the next morning, so that was a relief. She showed us to our room. You can see our room in the photo of L’Esplanade from the path, above; it is the corner room, one story up, and has a balcony.
The room was gorgeous. Maybe not quite so spacious as our room(s) at Domaine de la Vitrolle, but very spacious for France, and beautiful. And just wait until you see the view. My heart sang. I wanted to stay on that balcony and just soak in that view.
We can see all the way to La Roque-Gageac!
Beautiful Perigord farmlands . . .
Day is fleeting, and AdventureMan wants to explore, and rightly so. We are only in Domme for this one night. It was hard for me to leave that balcony; the view just sang to my heart.
Domme is walkable, and beautiful. There is something else about Domme – there are cats, lots of cats, and there are dishes out, hidden under benches, or visible on a step up to a house, or at the side of a doorway into a church. I imagine the cats keep the rats away, but it is lovely to see them repaid so generously and lovingly. The cats all looked very well fed.
Here is another church built in the same style as that of the church we saw in Audrix. I’m going to have to find out about this architecture. Domme is an old Templar town; I am wondering if this style is an indication of a Templar population?
Look at this barrel roof! Is that not beautiful?
A view of the church from the market square. We attended the market the next morning, but it was very small, and there is only so much hand-made soap I can buy!
The above photo was taken from in front of a very cool bookstore, which even had a large English section. They had thousands of books in all genres, all languages, and new and used books all together. It was a little bit of heaven, right there on the main square.
Actually, I lost my husband. He went into the bookstore, I took photos. I went into the bookstore, he wasn’t there! I tried to call him, and it did not go through. I knew if I went back to the hotel, we would eventually fine one another, but I kept looking, and we were both on the main square, just in different places. I too this photo in front of the wonderful book store.
Beautiful city coat-of-arms, no?
This was a wonderful place for us. We found this building, with these arched windows (which I love) and my husband found a plaque telling us it was the former mint, the man who struck the coinage for the area. As we went around the corner, looking in the window, AdventureMan said (very brave man!) “I think we need to go in there.” I had not been paying a lot of attention, I was looking in a window where the you could see the jeweler’s studio, with works in progress, which was fascinating. My husband was right, there were some beautiful pieces. I tend to buy jewelry in places just like this, where you can find original pieces, and, well, jewelry and silk scarves transport well. 😉
Inside, we met the jeweler’s son. As I picked out some pieces, my husband and him started a conversation, and as it got more interesting, I joined in. He talked about his family coming to Domme to seek new opportunities and new markets, and how wonderfully it had worked out for them.
I found the lovely chain-mail inspired neck;ace below in the tip of my stocking on Christmas morning 🙂
We talked about all kinds of social issues in France, and economic issues. We were all very cordial. At one point, Julien paused and then asked us, very haltingly, “You seem to be such nice people. How could you have elected a President like Trump?” We grimaced; it is a question Europeans ask us a lot. How could a country with the values we claim to share elect a man with no moral compass? He was horrified at what is happening in our country, and sad at our descent into corruption.
It was a hard conversation, and we all hung in there. At the end, we all hugged, and hoped for a better, more peaceful, less greedy world in the months and years to come. Sometimes the hardest conversations are those most worth having.
Meanwhile, back at L’Esplanade, we were eager to see what dinner would have to offer. L’Esplanade is well known for excellent cuisine, and we had reserved for dinner back when we made our hotel reservation. The dining room is lovely.
We think the settings are beautiful. There is a room where you can go have cocktails if the dining room is crowded and you have to wait, but tonight we only share the dining room with four other parties.
We order from the fixed menus. Our first course comes, a celery veloute’. It is a cream of celery soup, you can see it in the center of that great big black plate with a little recess in the center for the soup.
This was my main course, a little trout steak, decorated with a . . .potato chip. The little cubes of sweet potato were delicious.
AdventureMan had duck, again, decorated with a potato chip. He said the taste of the duck was exquisite.
His dessert was “Fig Three Ways” or maybe five, we couldn’t figure it out.
I loved my dessert, the raspberry sorbet part. It was decorated with passion fruit.
At the end of the meal, we were served this perfect little cookies.
This was another very quiet, very dark night of great sleep.
The next morning, we had breakfast in what I would call the garden room, and the owner’s family were all there, too, eating breakfast on their way to school, work, etc. It was really fun just being able to see them all eat, converse, be a normal family eating their breakfast together in the hotel. I loved it.
The Dordogne: Lost in Space, Font de Gaume and L’Augerie Base
That night, at Domaine de la Vitrolle, in the middle of the night I heard a bumping sound and my husband was not in bed. I said “Is that you?” and my husband’s voice came back saying “I’m lost! I don’t know where I am!” It was SO dark in our room that somehow, he had missed the bed and was off wandering in the sitting part of the suite and couldn’t orient himself.
It was dark, and it was quiet. I turned on a little flashlight, and he laughed at how disorienting it was to be in a strange space and not to know which way to turn.
The next morning, I was awake early (we sleep so well when it is dark, and quiet) so I took a bath in the great big tub and watched the day dawn through the stained glass windows of the bathroom. I had the windows open, and could hear the birds awake, and some tractor off in the hills head up to harvest the last of the grapes. It was so peaceful, and so lovely.
First, I need to tell you how very kind all the French people have been to us. We are often asked if we are not afraid the French will be rude to us, and I think maybe once or twice in the many years we have traveled in France, maybe someone has been having a bad day or was rude, but nothing I can remember. Mostly, we are delighted by how very helpful the French are with us.
Many times, I am taken for French. People stop me on the street and ask for directions, and I laugh and tell them (in French) that I am a tourist, and an American, and they just laugh.
On this trip, information is gold. The limo driver who took us to the train station told us to gas our car at the Intermarche or Carrefour, not at the regular gas stations, because the gas stations charge a lot more. We listened! He was right! The hotel manager at Domaine de la Vitrolle told us about the super markets, so we didn’t have to eat every meal out, especially at night when we would have to eat late. What luxury, to eat French foods in our own room, at our own pace, and as lightly as we chose!
Martin Walker/Bruno, Chief of Police particularly mentioned Font de Gaume in Les Eyzies, one of the very rare opportunities to see original cave art, which moves me greatly, and is a priority for me. But Font de Gaumes only allows a few people in every day, under strict conditions, so our breath, body temperature and sweat won’t impact on the fragile cave art.
I try to reserve tickets online, but it says it is not possible, so we are up, have breakfast and out the door by nine to be sure we are first in line and get to see Font de Gaume. Sadly, what I didn’t know was that we would have to leave our cameras outside, you can’t even take them in.
We get to Les Eyzies, and Font de Gaume way before it even opens, but we are far from the first ones there. They have benches with seat numbers on them, and we are close to the very end, like 48 and 49.
While we waited – and this line was just a line to get a number to buy your tickets, I saw this frieze over a door on a house across the street:
We got a number, and were told that there was only one English speaking tour and it was at 11:00, in 45 minutes. Or there was another one late in the afternoon. We chose the 11:00 tickets, thankful just to be able to get in.
At around 10:30 they said we could walk up to where we would meet our guide. We walked up and there was a group, but the guide said “This is a French group, you are in the next group!” and she was right – she already had 18 people.
In our group, it was interesting, there were only six real English speaking people, two from Australia, two others from the US, and us, and the rest were all other-languages – Portuguese, Spanish, Greek, etc. but people who could speak some English and who didn’t want to wait until later in the day to take the tour. We all had a really good time.
Here is a map of the cavern we will enter and the sights we will see:
The setting is spectacular. These mountains and hills and caves are thousands of years old.
And here we are, me with my bright shining face because we are going into Font de Gaume. I will share with you a secret – I am mildly claustrophobic, but I know how to keep it sort of under control. But I was glad to have this photo in my camera – all cameras had to be left in a special locked space – in case there was some kind of disaster, and they needed to be able to identify those trapped in / destroyed by a collapse in / etc. the cave. Drama drama drama I was glad what might be our last photo showed us smiling and happy.
We had a superb guide. She spent a lot of time showing us detail. She had a great group, we asked a lot of questions, and the more we asked, the more detail she gave us. It just kept spiraling, and we were all really serious and awed by what we were seeing. I could have stayed forever, and I just wish I had been able to take a photo for you, but we were in almost total dark, only the guide had a little (infrared?) (Ultraviolet?) (both?) flashlight with which she could show us the drawings. As we would go through some sections, she could turn on very dim lights, and she had to warn us constantly to watch our heads for outcroppings of rock.
Visiting Font de Gaumes was a thrill. I wish the same thrill for you. Here are a couple images, not my own, I found on the internet:
There are many bison, some deer, wolf, horses and mammoths.
Our wonderful guide is showing us the primitive kinds of pigments used to do the drawings in the caves, colors from stones, chalk, ashes, some mixed with liquid, some made into powder and blown onto the wall – and it must have been almost pitch dark. Imagine . . . .
In one of Martin Walker’s books, Bruno and his friends gather for a wedding feast at L’Augerie Basse, a restaurant built into a cave in the side of a mountain. You have a short hike to get there, but oh, what fun. (I want you to see where L’Augerie Basse is, and where it is in relation to Les Eyzies and Le Bugue)
Once again, people were very kind. Most of the people in the restaurant were working people, or locals. There was a constant hum of arrival and greeting, departure and farewells. Many people didn’t even look at the menu.
The restroom was not actually in the restaurant, but across the walkway, and I think it was all just bathrooms, not male or female except that some had urinals, but I think you could use either. I didn’t ask, it was all very clean and mostly I wanted to wash my hands. My husband excused himself and before I had a chance to tell him where the bathrooms were (it was not obvious) he left . . . and was gone a long time. He had trouble finding them.
Here is what I ordered:
Here is what my husband ordered:
Mine was pretty much the same, except I had one duck confit, and salad.
Best of all, I found a wine Martin Walker / Bruno Chief of Police recommended, a very local wine I wanted to try. I loved it! Pecharmant:
This was (another one of) the most memorable meals of our trip.
We had a wonderful lunch, and we needed to pack, but neither of us were ready to face that task quite yet. So I said “why don’t we go see St. Alvere, the truffle town? It is just on the other side of Limeuil?” and AdventureMan, always up for an exploration, agreed.
Did I mention the day our marriage survived a two and a half hour drive that ended up taking a whole day? Getting to St. Alvere was like that. I was navigating with Google, and we got on the tiniest, most remote roads. It took a long time to get to there. I never saw a truffle, but it was a gorgeous day, and a beautiful town, and indications that it, too, was on the pilgrimage route to San Diego Compostela.
On our way, we passed farm after farm filled with geese!
Thousands of geese!
The little road of the Pilgrims, above, in St. Alvere.
Now it was my husband’s turn to make a request. He had been very uneasy about our tires; there was a symbol on our dashboard that implied our tires needed more air, and as we were making a longer drive tomorrow, he wanted to add air, and put gas in the car. We headed back to Le Bugue, to the Intermarche, where we knew there was a gas station, and a place where you can clean cars.
We gassed up the car, and then found the car cleaning place. There was a man busy cleaning his car, vacuuming it, and we waited until he was finished and then asked if he knew where there was a machine which added air to tires.
He looked at us as if we were crazy. “It is right here,” he said, pointing to the machine with which he had been vacuuming.
These are the things that try men’s souls. It is not intuitive. Jeton means “token” but does it also mean coin? How does psi translate in French, how will we know how much air to add? We are consulting the car manual, the side of the driver’s door, the machine . . . eventually, we were able to add enough air, without adding too much air.
It is amazing what a major relief accomplishing this simple task gave us. We felt mighty! We had prevailed! We had conquered!
We celebrated with French tartes, little pies, peach for my husband and raspberry for me. AdventureMan discovered the Lego set we bought the day before is now HALF PRICE and he is hopping mad. I speak French, but I do not have the language skill set or the energy, at this point, to try to explain we want a refund. It is late in the day. I convince him to just . . . let it go. 🙂
It is a beautiful afternoon, almost the end of October and we are in short sleeves. We head back to Limeuil to take some shots of the Vezere river joining the Dordogne.
We drove across the Dordogne to take a picture of Limeuil from the other side:
Thank you, Martin Walker, and Bruno, Chief of Police, for intriguing us to visit this gloriously vivid and picturesque locale, with so much to do and to see. Below is the Vezere River joining the Dordogne River.
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