Cordes, Najac, Collonges-La-Rouge

We decided to get another late start today and stay in Cordes until right before checkout time (Much to the chagrin of the hotel's front desk). The breakfast room at the Hotel has a beautiful view North towards Bournazel and is a great way to start the day.

We wandered around for a while,



saw a house for sale:


and went into the Laguiole shop, but the prices seemed a little steep.

Heres kenji in front of an expensive foie gras shop where chloe bought some delicious caramels (don't worry, they weren't foie gras flavored).



I wandered down through the western gate and watched as cars barely made it through


And then headed back towards the hotel.


We navigated out of Cordes without any collisions with gates or pedestrians or other cars and headed North. I had wanted to see the town of Cirq-la-Popie, but the GPS couldn't find it, and I didn't want to overdo things since we had a long way to go. Instead, we went to a town called Najac

Where we walked around for a bit

and then had lunch in the main square. Kenji and I somewhat ill-advisedly ordered a lunch menu with beef as the main course. The lesson to be learned here is to never order beef dishes that cost less than 9 euro. The steaks looked great, so Kenji and I dug in and cut ourselves big chunks. Twenty or thirty seconds later we each looked at eachother still chewing like cows and almost burst out laughing. The steaks were as tough as old tires, and our only hope for chewing them was to cut them into thin little strips.

Najac appears to be a popular vacation spot for the British, since we heard a lot of English spoken (from inside houses) and saw some very un-french nameplates (like "Adams") on doors. It was a charming town and my parents are considering renting a gite there for a month next year. Interestingly, you can buy a beautifully restored farmhouse with land there for ~250,000 euro. This seems like a much better deal to me than a shoebox in Berkeley for $800,000, but maybe thats just me.

From Najac, we drove to the town of Turenne. Kenji impressed all of us by walking not only up to the top of the citadel, but to the very top of the tower (with the flag).









To save Kenji from the long walk down, chloe and I sprinted down the hill to get the car. On the way up we had seen a store that was selling a regional specialty: a walnut cake. Neither chloe nor I can resist things like this so we bought one, and it turned out to be delicious. Here is a recipe that I found for it:

Préparation 20 mn cuisson 45 mn.
3 oeufs, 250 g de sucre, 125 g dc beurre + 20 g pour le moule, 25 cl de tait, 250 g de farine + 10 g pour le Moule.
too g de cerneaux de noix, 12 cerneaux de noix pour le décor, 1 paquet de levure, 2 paquets de sucre vanillé.
Réduire te beurre en pommade, incorporer le sucre et les jaunes un par un, ajouter ta farine et la levure, le lait et le sucre vanillé, bien travailler le tout.
Incorporer délicatement les blancs en neige, et les cerneaux de noix grossièrement hachés.
Verser l'appareil dans un moule beurré et fariné, cuire à four moyen pendant 45 mn. Décorer avec les cerneaux de noix.


We were all set to drive up and pick Kenji up when we saw the dreaded sign: Entree interdit "Sauf Riverains" : locals only. However, we had no choice and broke the law to drive up to the top. Oh well, I doubt that was the first time a traffic law was broken in France!

From Turenne, we headed to our final destination: Collonges-la-Rouge. I had found this town on the "plus beaux villages de france" web site, and the hotel on gites-de-france.fr, so we really had no idea what it was going to be like. The town turned out to be incredibly picturesque: ancient steeples and spires all made out of red sandstone bricks, small walkways and charming stores.






It's true that the town is a bit touristy, but not overly so. The hotel turned out to be one of the best of the trip. Here are our rooms:




After checking in, we looked around in the town



and I found a place which makes knives by hand in the town: Le Couteau de Correze. My friends know that I'm a little knife crazy -- it's a Japanese thing. I was totally uninterested in french or european knives until we stumbled on Laguiole a few years ago, when I bought myself and Chloe two exquisite folding pocket knives from the Forge de Laguiole. The Correze knives are in my opinion just as nice as the Laguiole knives, but a lot less expensive. Before the trip I had priced Laguiole steak knives in the US because I wanted a set of six. However, I didn't really want to spend $300! So I was happy to find a beautiful set of steak knives at this store, with olivewood handles for just over $100


Chloe also bought me a mystery birthday present there, which she has claimed is a "Spife" -- like a spork, but a spoon-knife. I hope she's joking.

The town emptied of people by 6 pm, which coincided well with some excellent light (this one was actually taken a bit earlier):



We had dinner at an informal place down the street... the best parts of the meal were my foie gras (a specialty of the region) and a dessert that I am forgetting the name of.