Here is a picture of the of the medieval cathedral, Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Cahors, and the market in which we picked up some food for later in the day. Everything was much cheaper than we were used to. Give it up for small towns!
OK...part of the reason we chose Cahors was because of the AOC (appellation d'origine contrôlée or in other words, Cahors and the surrounding region) are known for their wines...the black wine...the malbec grape! We have had many malbec wines from the "new world" such as Chile and Argentina and loved the wines that we tasted. The price vs. quality were also good deals. Many of the new world malbecs, we found to be spicy and peppery. We wanted to see what the "old world" had to offer and the difference in taste. We caught the bus to the next town of Douelle. This is where we originally we were going to rent bikes and ride around to vineyards, but in the town, we found many small wineries that were happy to let us try their wines without an appointment! This is big for France and for us, since we are more spur of the moment planners and a majority of wineries here require you have to have an appointment which can entail many phone calls or emails to nail down the right person you need to talk to make an appointment. Anyways, here is a picture in front of the first place that we stopped.
Cahors wines and the malbec grape are known to be powerful and tannic wines so they need time to settle down a little bit. Most of the wines that we tasted were anywhere from 5-10 years old which was really interesting to taste. These are much older wine than we are used in terms of the "new world" wines. Much of the spiciness was much more subtle and you get more dried fruits as opposed to fresh fruits. At this place, the man was friendly and talkative, we liked this bottle and offered to buy one but the man just gave it to us, for free!!! A good, free bottle of wine, can't beat that!
Cahors - The legend of Malbec. A picture of the chai - the wine cellar.
Here is a picture of the outside.
The road leading to the next stop.
A picture of the famous black wine with the official glass of the Cahors region.
After some tastings, we had a picnic lunch at the bus stop with some food we picked up at the market in front of the church in Cahors. Rocamadour cheese was a specialty of the region. Made from young goats milk. Not our favorite but glad we tasted it.
Some dried sausage and the bleu de brebis cheese that started our love affair with these types of blue cheeses. Not sure what it was about this cheese but it was so unbelievably good!!! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Hold on a sec, I am going to run to the store and get some right now...
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...still here? Cool. Ever since we had this cheese, we have steadily been buying different kinds of blue cheeses, Roquefort is still the favorite, St. Agur is a close second.
I wish we would have gotten a picture of the lady that helped us with the tasting here. She was so nice and excited to see us. She spoke great broken english to us and I tried to speak French in return. It was a great time. I love supporting small businesses like this!!!
A tabac/restaurant that we grabbed a café to warm up. I thought the ambiance was awesome and truly european. Stone walls, cat on the bar, to the right was a huge fireplace where wood logs crackled & kept us warm and an old lady with a warm smile ran the place.
A view of a small river filled with fish that ran through Douelle. The church steeple in the background.
The bridge that led to the town.
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That night, after wandering around all day, we were tired and hungry. We walked around the whole city trying to find a place to eat. We ended up eating at a crêperie that offered crêpes as well as a regular menu too.
We made the right choice! Here is my appetizer of mussels in a safron cream sauce.
Katie's appetizer of pâté...not bad, but I shared my mussels with her.
Happy travelers.
For a digestif, we tried another regional specialty, pruneaux d'Armagnac. We THOUGHT we were just getting a drink- usually a digestif is a very small and strong drink, but this turned out to be a glass of prunes in a liquor. The verdict: delicious.
Yum. How do you know that you are getting old?? You start to eat and love the taste of prunes. If that is true than Katie and I are well beyond our years because we do love them especially the Pruneaux d'Agen (prunes from the region of Agen)
Another angle.
Cahors is famous for their medieval bridge: Le Pont Valentré. The city is also littered with other medieval leftovers.
A look at the cobble stone and tower on the bridge.
Another angle.
Not a medieval remanant but a modern lock used for lowering boast between stretches of water. The reason for the picture: when I asked Katie "Do you know what this is used for?" After thinking long and hard on the possibilities, she replied "did they take a bath in it?"
Once we crossed the bridge on the other side of the river, there was a trail that we hiked up and snapped this shot of the bridge.
Some friends that joined us on the hike up.
The view from above.
A video with the panoramic view.
Here is the Arc de Diane part of the Gallo-Roman baths.
The tower of La Barbacane, a midieval gateway into the city.
The living quarters of the La Barbacane
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After walking around the city, we figured, why not try and walk to a few vineyards outside the city? They didn't look that far on the map, right? They were farther than we thought. We got a little outside the city and decided it was too far, getting too late and turned around. In all, I think we walked about 7-8 miles.
Here is yet another view of the bridge from another angle on the walk back into the city.
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