And it's pissing down again this morning.
Never the less we must press on and see things.
First stop - the lovley little town of Brantome. Some history here and some very nice sites. By the time we got here the weather had improved vastly and the sun was shining.
There are caves here and people build their house into them. Must be dark inside.
Others have more conventional places.
They have a church here was built in the 8th century.
Apparently King Charlemagne visited here sometime in the way back and that is of some significance to them that know about these things. If you look at the picture above you see the bell tower is a bit cock-eyed and not directly over the church. That is because it was built on the rock that is beside the church. Even in those days contractors were trying to make short cuts.
We went on a cheap boat trip here.
Coming back into town and you can really see how the church bell tower in not built on the church itself but on the rock beside the church.
The second stop was at another cave called Grotte de Villars . We must like our caves because this is the third one we've visited.
Of course no pictures were allowed so I have borrowed some from the inter-weeb.
Our third stop was at a place called Puyguilhem Chateau. This is a restored 15th century chateau.
This is a poigeon coop. They kept up to 500 of them in here. For food and they used the droppings in their mulc pit to create fertilizer.
That must have been a great job - collecting the droppings each day.
The rear of the chateau. No where near as fancy as the front.
The roof beams - in original condition after almost 500 years.
Intricate carvings above one of the main fireplaces.
A shot showing the intricate carving round the windows.
And a 500 year old tapestry.
