Brantome Market and Beyond...

Yesterday we had one of casual days....catching up with the blog, emails, and washing our clothes. Last night a big storm blew in, lots of thunder, lightning, and rain. This morning it had turned into pretty constant drizzle, but that was not going to stop us...we had a bit planned today.

After breakfast we headed into Brantome for its weekly market, as you know, we love going to French villages and towns when the market is one because they really come to life...this market was no different, even with the rain!

The Market and Abbey

Getting Close To The End Of Strawberry Season

The Brantome market looks great with the big old abbey and river as a backdrop, it not only is setup in the square next to the river but also runs down a couple of the streets coming off of the square...great little setup.

Ducks Did Not Notice The Rain Either

Market Setup In Nearby Streets

After we had bought all of our goodies we headed back to the car. Now I had planned out a few places that I wanted to take Lesley to today...mainly two little villages that are on the list of France's Most Beautiful Villages...this website has not let us down in great places to visit..so off we went.

A few kilometres out of Brantome we noticed an old castle up on a hill, so we turned off to investigate.

The Castle At La Chapelle Faucher

We pulled into the little village at the base of the castle, La Chapelle Faucher. As we have noticed with little villages like this it was empty of people....I always feel like I am in one of those Spaghetti Western movies walking into one of those deserted towns where the locals peer at you from behind their curtains...lol....where is everybody??

The Castle Gatehouse

There were quite a few great old buildings in this very small village, and as we had not planned to go here this place turned out to be quite a pleasant surprise.

The Town Square

Farmhouse and Castle

So it was back to the car and back on track to the first of two listed beautiful villages that we planned to visit today, Segur Le Chateau.

About 30 minutes later we pulled into Segur Le Chateau, a little village sitting on a bend of the Auvezere River...it was not hard to see why this place is listed as one of France's Beautiful Villages.

The View As We Drove Into Town

The river may be a major feature of this village, but the buildings are quite spectacular in their own right varying from medieval through to a few hundred years old. We parked the car and walked around the village for quite some time taking in all that it had to offer, we loved it.

The View From The Carpark

Medieval Buildings

Beautiful House

The Old Mill

We soon worked up an appetite and headed to a small cafe we had spotted near where we parked the car. For just 11.50 euros each we had a main and dessert, the weather swung us both to the Coq Au Vin which went down very well with a local red. For dessert I could not go past the Le Royal chocolate ( a white, milk, and dark chocolate cake) while Lesley went for the L'ile Flottante (an island of very light meringue sitting in a sea of Vanilla Custard), all finished off with coffee.

Little Cafe For Lunch

Lunch

The two owners (the waiter and chef) were both very friendly and made us feel very welcome, I am sure that they added to our enjoyment of eatiing here. As we finished lunch a group of ducks came out of the river, across the carpark to where we were sitting...the chef came out and fed them corn (a daily occurrence apparently)....I wonder if they will appear on a future menu?

Foie Gras, Confit and Friends Eating Their Corn

After lunch we said our goodbyes and headed to our next destination, Saint Robert.

The village is dominated by the 12th century Benedictine monastery built by the followers of Saint Robert, of course.

Saint Robert Benedictine Church

As it was just after lunch the town (as usual) was very quiet, so taking photos of the lovely streets and houses was very easy.

Great Building and Streets Everywhere

Look Carefully, I Found A Local!!

It was starting to get late in the afternoon, so we decided to head back to our gite.

Chateau de Hautefort

On the way back we drove through the village of Hautefort it was hard to not notice the very spectacular Chateau de Hautefort.

 

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