sobering stopover
With reluctance we left our lodgings in Dierre yesterday, our lovely hostess, Evelyne, sent us off with local cookies and her own homemade jam and kisses on both cheeks.
It was good sustenance for a long travel day. We were leaving the Loire Valley, and making a pretty straight shot south, in a small town close to Toulouse, called Moissac. This is just a one night stopover, and as I sit up at 4 am because I can’t sleep, it’s "today" already.
While we prepared for a "get there fast, major highway" experience, what we really experienced was rolling hills, beautiful valley towns and lush forest, both deciduous and evergreen through the rest of the Loire and the Dordogne Valley.
Let me tell you a little about France. Coffee is amazing. Local wines are both fabulous and cheap. Sheep are everywhere, as are cute towns. Cute towns just never get old. Ancient stone barns are as common as Scotch Broom at home. Trees are small, relatively speaking. Logging trucks are half as long as ours. Toilet seats are optional. So is soap and toilet paper. Working taps, in fact, are not a guarantee. One has learned to carry toilet paper and wet wipes in all circumstances. What France lacks in public washroom facilities, it makes up for in character and charm on every other front. French people eat late. Restaurants usually don’t open until 7 pm. We see people carrying baguettes every morning down the street. Multiple times. I know this sounds like racial profiling, but it’s completely true.
While we were driving, I thought I would keep a log of cute French towns for future reference on our way through the valleys. After three hours, I had filled a notebook and decided the Albert and I will likely not live long enough to visit all these towns anyway.
On one of our grit your teeth, God only knows what this bathroom will be like stops along the way, we encountered our first 24 hour fresh baguette machine. Put in your money, and out comes a fresh, warm baguette. You can’t make this stuff up.
The one stop we had planned for the day was a little town called Oradour-sur-Glane. Four days after D-day, on June 10, 1944, an entire village was massacred by a company of Nazi troops. Charles de Gaulle determined that the town should be left as a memorial for those lost, and a reminder of the horrors of war. Words don’t do justice to the powerful images.
And in the 75 year old ruins, through crevices in the rock, tiny flowers bloom in the rubble and waste; unspeakable atrocities and the life insists on rooting itself here. Struggle. Hope. Life.
We arrived in our little town for the night with enough time to drop our stuff, find a place to eat, and shuffle off to bed.
It was good sustenance for a long travel day. We were leaving the Loire Valley, and making a pretty straight shot south, in a small town close to Toulouse, called Moissac. This is just a one night stopover, and as I sit up at 4 am because I can’t sleep, it’s "today" already.
While we prepared for a "get there fast, major highway" experience, what we really experienced was rolling hills, beautiful valley towns and lush forest, both deciduous and evergreen through the rest of the Loire and the Dordogne Valley.
Let me tell you a little about France. Coffee is amazing. Local wines are both fabulous and cheap. Sheep are everywhere, as are cute towns. Cute towns just never get old. Ancient stone barns are as common as Scotch Broom at home. Trees are small, relatively speaking. Logging trucks are half as long as ours. Toilet seats are optional. So is soap and toilet paper. Working taps, in fact, are not a guarantee. One has learned to carry toilet paper and wet wipes in all circumstances. What France lacks in public washroom facilities, it makes up for in character and charm on every other front. French people eat late. Restaurants usually don’t open until 7 pm. We see people carrying baguettes every morning down the street. Multiple times. I know this sounds like racial profiling, but it’s completely true.
While we were driving, I thought I would keep a log of cute French towns for future reference on our way through the valleys. After three hours, I had filled a notebook and decided the Albert and I will likely not live long enough to visit all these towns anyway.
On one of our grit your teeth, God only knows what this bathroom will be like stops along the way, we encountered our first 24 hour fresh baguette machine. Put in your money, and out comes a fresh, warm baguette. You can’t make this stuff up.
The one stop we had planned for the day was a little town called Oradour-sur-Glane. Four days after D-day, on June 10, 1944, an entire village was massacred by a company of Nazi troops. Charles de Gaulle determined that the town should be left as a memorial for those lost, and a reminder of the horrors of war. Words don’t do justice to the powerful images.
And in the 75 year old ruins, through crevices in the rock, tiny flowers bloom in the rubble and waste; unspeakable atrocities and the life insists on rooting itself here. Struggle. Hope. Life.
We arrived in our little town for the night with enough time to drop our stuff, find a place to eat, and shuffle off to bed.
Baguette machine!
ReplyDeleteBring one home!