Lunch, Gouffre de Padirac, and Goats

 

October23, 2021

Lunch, Gouffre de Padirac, and Goats

Today is a good day to write at length about our food and drink.  It has been generally very good, with an occasional ordinary meal, and some extraordinary ones.  We are eating too much and eating too much rich food.  It’s not sustainable, and if it were not temporary because we are on vacation, we would balloon up beyond recognition.  We are drinking wine twice a day, at lunch and dinner, usually good local wines.  We tell ourselves we will begin eating normally when we get home.  Today’s lunch is an example.

 We had the morning free to sleep in, wander the town and catch up on laundry, etc.  We met at 11:30 and drove to a local restaurant for lunch.  Awaiting us at the table was an aperitif of kirsch and white wine, and the first course was served promptly, a salad with two large portions of duck liver foie gras along with fresh walnuts (which are being harvested here now):

 


Pitchers of local red wine were on the table.  The second course was lamb chops with baked potatoes stuffed with an onion concoction, and fresh vegetables:

 


The third course was local Rocamadour goat cheese and delicious fresh crusty bread:

 


The fourth course was fresh pears with a warm chocolate sauce:

 


And then, served after dessert, coffee:

 


All of this took about an hour and a half.  To be repeated at dinner.

 We waddled out from lunch and drove to a remarkable site, Gouffre de Padirac, a huge series of caves with an underground river, entered from a huge collapsed cave which is open to the sky:

 


There is a series of connected huge caves and an underground river running through the site.  We climbed down and down and down and into the cave system until we reached a small dock where punt-like boats which held about 10 people each were docked:



Each boat had an oarsman (or woman) (oarsperson?) who stood at the back, sort of like a Venetian gondola and propelled the boat forward.  The boat ride was stunning:

 


At the far end of the boat ride was another opportunity to walk even farther into the cave system, up and down hundreds of steps.  It was truly remarkable.  The way back was exactly the reverse—taking the boat in the opposite direction, but with little climbing as there are elevators to lift you up out of the cave system. 

 On the way back to our hotel we stopped at one of the goat farms which is responsible for the milk used to make the local goat cheese which we had for lunch. 

 




They sell the cheese there:

 


Back to the hotel to prepare for dinner!  We roll out of here and to Toulouse tomorrow.

Comments

  1. Rwa442October 23, 2021 at 5:59 PM

    Wow! What a lunch. Nothing like our Friday lunches...

    ReplyDelete

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