Aveyron - France Profund

Aveyron – the French Countryside.

On Sunday we took an Uber to the Montparnasse Train station, and caught a TGV (high speed train) to Toulouse. Only part of the trip was on the high speed rail network, so it took 5 hours to get to Toulouse. The INOUI train was very comfortable, with a bar car. We picked up an Enterprise rental car at the train station, but when we pushed the start button, nothing happened. It was a hybrid, so they explained that the engine does not start until needed, we only needed to put it in gear.

Our drive was partly on a toll Autoroute, and then on roads that became progressively narrower and more twisty. We arrived at John and Alison's house without difficulty. They have an old stone house, hundreds of years old. They have a “maisonette” or guest house, which is where we are staying. The beams are hewn, not sawn. The stone walls are at least 18 inches thick. Alison fixed us a nice dinner.

We are in the department of Aveyron; Rodez is the largest city, with a population of 25,000. We are in a tiny community, surrounded by other tiny rural communities. The closest store is about 10 minutes away.  Alison thinks that we are in "deep France", or "France Profund".

They do have fiber internet. There was no wifi in the mesonette, as WIFI signals do not go through thick stone walls. I suggested John order an outdoor WIFI extender, which I installed in the window, and provides decent internet inside their guest house.

Monday we did a little work around the yard, and then visited a local antique shop. Alison fixed us another nice dinner.

The church was painted everywhere

Very fine stone carving

Tuesday Sandi and I went to Albi, which has an unbelievable brick cathedral, reportedly one of the largest brick buildings in France. The interior is painted everywhere, and there is an incredible amount of very detailed limestone carving. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We also visited the Toulouse-Lautrec museum, where we saw his early work painting people and animals, and also his better known work with printed posters promoting books or performances. We visited a religious goods store, run by a loveable franciscan friar, who looks at his work as evangelization, as young people come in to talk.

Wednesday we drove two cars to Rodez, for the farmer's market. We had a fine meal at Touosto. Sandi and I walked to the Musee Fenaille, which ranged from stone age artifacts to Roman busts to medieval church objects. The day was very hot, so in the afternoon we relaxed in our cool stone house.

View from the castle

Castle drawbridge

Thursday we drove to Belcastel, which we liked very much. We started at the reconstructed castle, with somewhat hokey animatronic monsters, but it was cool to see the castle. We had a picnic from Alison that we ate near the campground, which looked very nice. We visited the chapel. Then we stopped in a couple of craft shops, where Sandi bought a few items. We also visited the blacksmith shop, which also had exhibits on fishing, making sabots (wooden shoes), as well as art carved from the trunks of trees.

Friday was a longish drive to Conques over small twisty roads, which took us over an hour to drive 35 miles. We had a good lunch at an organic restaurant. The church was very medieval, and did not have the opulence that we saw in Albi. The monks finished singing midday Vespers as we arrived. We visited the treasury of the church, which had a number of impressive artifacts from up to 1000 years ago. We also visited the museum, which included tapestries depicting Mary Magdalene.  Conques is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Richard enjoyed chatting with some French pilgrims. The drive seemed even longer on the way back. The area is called the land of 1000 valleys; it seemed we went up and down a good percentage of them. ;-)