Lost In France ...Part 2 Rocamadour

Bonjour mon amis

I'm back again....
This one won't be as long as the last one I promise....

So far we have visited a few sites in the Dordogne Lot area, one recommended to me as a must see was Rocamdour which is a town in the hillside complete with castle.


 So with trusty AA map in hand off we went. I can only say I was impressed with both the drive and the area and can definitely recommend a visit.


We had the choice to park at the top by the castle ramparts or down below in the car park area and take le Petit Train up into the town, needless to say we chose the lower car park and ticket in hand boarded Le petit train for our ride to the top.

At the top we were greeted with a wonderful old street filled with shops selling the usual tourist nick knacks,  Foie Gras which is a delicacy of the area - one i've never tried and I'm not sure I'd like to given the price of it!  Coffee shops and restaurants a plenty mingled in with the odd chocolate shop and clothing boutique.  But the real beauty lay upwards....up towards the sky line. The buildings were magnificent and made up of a collection of church buildings belonging to the sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the castle which sat right at the top overlooking everything else.
Walking over the cobbled streets it was amazing to think that people had been doing that since 1166 - if those walls could talk....

I love history and nothing pleases me more than a good ramble round an old house , church, castle or indeed ruin with camera in hand.
I know England has a fine tradition of preserving old places but no one does a Châteaux like the French.

We wandered around the streets for a while, pain du chocolate in hand, then soon tummy,  then climbed the 217 steps upwards towards the castle buildings. Reaching the top of the stairs we were then faced with a  sloping walkway that criss crossed backwards and forwards rising around 200ft.
This successfully negotiated we reached the top and the castle ramparts, and this is where frustration and disappointment kicked in. The ramparts were accessible but via an unmanned turnstile which was coin operated - something they don't tell you about at the bottom, and as we had only 1 €1 coin on us and the small and very reasonable charge was €2 each we were forced to turn around a amble back down again.
Not that we let that distract from the lovely time we had at all - so just a note to you all if you do ever find yourself assending 400ft up to the ramparts remember to take some change with you !

Fortified with a café au lait we boarded the petit train back down to the car park and set off on another adventure.....

K
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