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.

one last climb, Albi, Cordes

On our way out of the Amphi sector, I saw a very cool looking climb which followed a steep overhang and finished on a low angle jug filled slab. It looked like my kind of climb, and we decided to come back for a morning session.

So after another excellent breakfast

in which I FINALLY asked what those multi colored things are in the container next to the orange juice (Pollen grains, for your coffee, yogurt, or whatever), we headed to the crag again.

Unfortunately, things didn't go so well: a general lack of fitness and two days of climbing left me weak and I ended up getting demoralised on the warm up. Things went downhill rapidly from there and involved a lot of hanging on the rope, cursing, pulling on draws and general dispair. In the end everything worked out, and I can add that climb to my growing list of unfinished business in the tarn. After gathering up our gear, we headed back to the castle (yeah, I like saying that) for another bath and packed up.

After settling the four digit bill, we drove out of the tarn, stopping at the point sublime to look out over the Tarn



And then made a short detour to show my parents the magnificent Millau Viaduct. They have a little aire built there now, which we stopped at briefly.

From the viaduct, we headed North to Albi and somehow ended up in the pedestrian filled extreme center, which was not a pleasant driving experience. After finding parking, we walked to the Musee Toulouse-Lautrec

so that Kenji and Gail could get their fine art fix. The museum has some of the litho stones which still have images on them! There was also a fun little side kiosk with Toulouse Lautrec's "special" cane. In the later years of his life, he was put in an institution to curb his alcoholism. To get around this, he aquired a special flask-cane, complete with a cute little shot glass. I dragged Kenji into the room, ready to tell him something he didn't know, but Kenji's encyclopedic knowledge of artists prevailed and he knew exactly what it was.

After a coffee in the square next to the museum, we hit the road again to get to our next hotel. We had looked in the Karen Brown guide for a place near Albi and had come up with a place in a town called Cordes-sur-ciel, which none of us had heard of. Albi and its outskirts are really quite ugly, so it was with great surprise that we saw a fairy tale town rise up over the landscape.

Cordes is stunning: beautiful cobblestone streets and old houses in a oval pattern perched on a hilltop. It's a little unnverving driving up the steep cobbled streets, but we made it to the hotel and checked in. We were pretty happy to have found a parking space right in front of the hotel, but it turned out that parking is illegal after 10 AM. The hotel offers free parking, but the directions on how to use it are a little convoluted and require a color coded map!


After parking the car and checking out the beautiful atrium,



we explored the village a bit










and went to a restaurant that served regional specialties... and had tables set up in the central arcade. For dinner, Chloe and Kenji got the duck with aligot, which was excellent, and I got the sausage with aligot (also very good). Gail ordered the cassoulet, which was also wonderful. I think that aligot, which is a potent combination of potato, cheese and garlic would make an excellent and easy apres-ski dish. I found a recipe here. Kenji and I had the regional apple pastry for dessert, while Chloe and Gail wussed out with sorbets.

Climbing again

We warmed up in the figues au cul sector. On the way there we passed a Caterpillar with an implement that I named "the thrashing machine": basically an industrial sized weed whacker with steel whips housed in a barrel around two feet in diameter amd four feet long. The operator would just move it towards the brush on the side of the road and it would eat everything in its path with an alarming clamor. Figues au cul was a kilometer away from where we had seen the thrasher initially, and somehow I hadn't really thought that it was going to continue along the road. It was with considerable nervousness therefore that I watched it thrash its way to within a few feet of our car. As the thrasher lurched towards the Ford, I had visions of shattered windows, sideview mirrors sent shooting off into the road, and exploding tires. Thankfully, it did not demolish our car, but continued on down the road.


The thrashing appendage is at the end of the yellow arm. You can see one of the tail lights of our Ford Focus at the lower right hand edge of the image.

From Figues au Cul, we headed to what turned out to be one of my favorite areas: l'amphi. We walked through the Tennesee sector to get there

Its a rock balcony shaded by trees with a perfectly flat belaying area. It is accessible through a short via ferrata and looks out into the gorge

We did "salut les copines", 6b,



then I got my ass handed to me on "Le veuve noire", 7b, and I finished up by onsighting GR15, 6c+.
Heres a french dude casually strolling up it


and Chloe, back at the Tennesee sector

and me, tired

It was already 14:00 and we hadn't eaten lunch, so we stopped at la Malene for sandwiches. I scraped a fist sized ball of butter out of my sandwich (this is my biggest problem with French sandwiches -- WAY too much butter and mayo).
Heres CZ post-limonade and sandwich


After rinsing off, we joined my parents for some watercolors









and then took the requisite group shot in front of the castle

Chloe and I were staying in the room at the very left on the second floor before Gail kicked us out, and then in the room at the top middle (with the windows open).

Chloe and I took a walk up the Tarn before dinner



Dinner was just as good as last night, but a bit heavier. It started with scallops, followed by lamb with an emulsion of zucchini (very much like the previous night) and a cream topped fruits rouge dessert. I also had a generous cheese plate with wonderful roquefort (pronounched roak-a-fore by the locals)... and les Paradines again!

Climbing

We spent most of the day climbing, or at least trying to find the "Gymnase" secteur after a much longer than necessary walk via "Le Grand Toit". After an unsteady start on some easy stuff (relent d'ail), we got into our rhythm and basked in the pocketed glory of Le Tarn. I was happy to do "Plus jamais peut etre" on sight with my still injured ham string! As I was pulling the rope, I saw something get dislodged 30 meters above. This kind of thing happens a lot, and it's usually a small rock or leaf that gets hit by the rope and then falls to the ground. However, this was falling much slower than a rock but a lot faster than a leaf, and I stared at it as it reached the midpoint at around fifty feet. Much to my surprise it turned out to be a baby lizard, waving all four of its legs like crazy, and obviously not very happy at how it's day was going.

On the way back to Ste. Enemie to pick up the parental units, we concocted a story to trick them: we would claim that we had found *another* castle which happened to be a hotel which was much bigger and more impressive than the one that we were supposed to be staying in. The plan was to distract my mom, since she knew the name of where were staying, pull in to the parking lot of Chateau de la Caze, ooohing and aahing and saying how much better *this* castle was, then stop and casually walk into the castle. It all went off like a charm and kenji and gail were thoroughly fooled.

Here is La Caze, and a few views from the grounds



The rooms were fantastic, with a claw footed bathtub and beautiful bathroom in the turret!

and windows overlooking the grounds

There were trout of some kind in the moat, but some of them were so huge that I initially thought they were carp. There was one in particular which looked to be almost two feet long. You can see it in the middle of the photo below. Keep in mind that this was taken from the second story, and the moat is a story below the ground floor

Kenji and I discovered a nice balcony overlooking the river



and then we headed downstairs for another excellent dinner. It started with amuses bouches of trout sashimi (a first for me) followed by perfectly cooked cod and a moelleux au chocolat. We also ordered a half bottle of the excellent languedoc wine called "les paradines" (2003).