As Matt recounted in the last entry, we’ve spent the last week or so playing host to his Dad, Chuck. Despite it only being a flying visit, we managed to pack an awful lot of activities in so I suspect that 2 entries will be needed to document it all. I’ll see how far I get before this one gets too long.
To pick up the narrative: on Thursday, we headed out to the nearby town of St. Saud-Lacoussière, home to a fantastic restaurant called L’Hostellerie St. Jacques. The astute Frog Blog fan may remember we first went there last October when David C visited. It is normally a very expensive place, but they do a great weekday lunch offer, for which you get 3 courses, a kir, 2 glasses of wine and various mises-en-bouches as well, including fab things like toffee-glazed cherry tomatoes. This year’s visit did not disappoint at all, leaving us grossly full – the hallmark of a good meal out in these parts. The weather for the entire of Chuck’s visit was hot and sunny, so unlike last year, we ate out on their lovely terrace. I won’t list all the individual courses so you’ll just take my word for it that the standard of the meal was simply incredible.
Extremely well-fed, we piled into the car for our first day-trip, Le Château de Hautefort, about an hour’s drive south of us. We’ve long been meaning to pay it a visit, and are very glad we finally have – it really is quite spectacular. Built in the 17th Century on the site of an older fort, the château is huge, set on a cliff overlooking the village of Hautefort itself. Its grounds are also highly impressive – a series of very well-tended formal gardens. Apparently, it was falling into a state of some disrepair at the beginning of the 20th Century, until it was acquired by a rich baron and his wife, who restored it to its current glory. I was rather amused to learn that their names were the Baron and Baroness de Bastard.
It was a good 30 degrees or so down there, so once we’d seen as much as we could, we returned to Port 80 and took it easy for a bit. That evening, Nat & Jill invited us over to theirs for an apéritif dinatoire – ie, a few drinks and some light finger-food. This was the perfect amount of food for us after our mammoth lunch, and we had a great time enjoying the evening sun and the tranquility of their garden. N&J are both well and enjoying a break from the madness of high-season. I think their gîtes and their B&B were booked out for the entirety of August, but now they just have a few more B&B customers before the season ends.
On to Friday and our next planned excursion: this time, up north. Chuck is quite a history buff, so we decided to visit the town of Oradour-sur-Glane, the memorial of a horrific WWII massacre. It is situated near Limoges, so to make a day of it, and as neither Matt nor I have ever really explored the city itself, we started out there. We’d heard from a few people that Limoges leaves something to be desired as far as a tourist destination, and it’s true that the city overall isn’t that appealing. It does however have a pretty old town section with tall half-timber houses and narrow cobbled streets, surrounding a vast cathedral. It also houses a very pretty botanical garden, so despite going in with low expectations, we were pleasantly surprised by our brief stroll. We capped this off with lunch at a café and then drove on to Oradour.
The tragic story of Ordaour, in brief, is that the French Resistance had captured and was holding prisoner a ranking SS officer. News of this reached a Nazi battalion that was in the area and it descended upon the town, sealing it off. Everyone present was herded into the town centre, purportedly to present their papers for inspection. Instead, they were all brutally gunned down – men, women and children alike. In all, some 650 innocent people were killed, and the town itself was razed to the ground. What is particularly tragic is that the battalion hadn’t even got the right place. The captured SS officer was apparently held in nearby Oradour-sur-Vayres. The Nazis just confused the name. After the massacre, the then president, De Gaulle, ordered the town to be left exactly as it was and to this day it remains untouched, a harrowing memorial. Despite the heat of the day, walking through those silent streets was a chilling experience and not one I am keen to repeat any time soon, although I am glad we went to see it.
Back in Milhac that evening, Matt’s old conversation class met at around 6pm for an AGM, to which Matt was cordially invited. Afterwards, the group had arranged to convene at a member’s house for a meal, and to this, unlike the meeting, friends and family were also invited. Apparently the group discussed the fact that Matt can no longer attend the meetings as they fall on an office day for him, so all present were asked if they would mind meeting on Wednesdays instead, just to fit around his schedule. He’s obviously greatly missed there! Around 30 people came to the dinner that evening, a mix of French and English, most of whom were new faces for me. We were served a very tasty meal (and as luck would have it, one that both Chuck and I could eat) and had a good amount of wine before heading back to Port 80.
We hit the road early the next morning to get a good start on our planned overnight trip to Toulouse, known as La Ville Rose, a beautiful city of which I am now a huge fan. However, this entry grows long, so I shall leave it to Matt to pick up the tale of our stay in his next entry. Until then, au revoir from Mazeroux.