The destination is Greece but there is a detour. There is always a detour.
Paul is constantly on the lookout for a good deal - it is his job; it keeps him sane; it's what he loves to do, he takes it very seriously. He digests huge amounts of information daily. One of his regular reads is the newsletter of a small, Australian business owned by two francophile tragics called French Desires. Amongst other things, this newsletter lists French properties owned by Australians - for rent or for sale. So who couldn't imagine themselves in a three storey, mediaeval stone house in a beautiful French village, for 75,000 euros? Worth a detour?
Le Bugue is in a good position relative to the all of the attractions of south west France -beautifully picturesque villages along the ancient gorges of the Dordogne and Vezere rivers, fabulous locally grown produce, ancient cities and towns with abundant and accessible histories, and nearby, the very cradle of northern hemisphere civilization, the Lasceau caves.
Unfortunately, Le Bugue shared none of that mediaeval beauty, having sold its central village heart to the car, long ago. And the property we inspected had little natural light, a suspect staircase and a damp cellar, to boot. I didn't even take a photo of it.
A day later found us in this cute 13th century B&B which was originally a coach house for travellers stopping in Saint Antonin Noble Val. The Noble relates to the fact that the King of France stopped here several times and had his own lodging built in case he stopped again, and the Val refers to the valley in which Saint Antonin lays.
Saint Antonin Noble Val is in the Lot region, on the river Averyon, not too far from the big market centre of Cahors. With a population of around 1,800 it was about half the size of Le Bugue but many of those 1,800 were English refugees who had sold up and moved permanently to south west France.
This mediaeval town is small and well preserved and lies in a deep valley. It was very pretty to look at, seemed to have a good deal of community spirit but a worryingly large number of properties for sale.
The properties we had come to look at turned out to be a bit too mediaeval for our pockets.
Despite the sunshine in the town square, most streets were very narrow meaning that the houses didn't get much sun or natural light.
On Sunday morning a wonderful local produce market came to town. This stall sold 101 varieties of olives.
Fresh fruit and vegetable everywhere ...
... and many local varieties of sausage ...
... and baskets to carry it all home.
But when the Dutch host of our B&B mentioned in passing that in the bad winter of 2010 the temperature in Saint Antonin had sat at minus 12 degrees C for ten consecutive days, we quickly turned East and headed for Greece.
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