{"id":4233,"date":"2023-06-15T16:07:05","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T16:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=4233"},"modified":"2025-12-24T22:28:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T22:28:03","slug":"9-a-lot-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=4233","title":{"rendered":"9. A LOT MORE!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Duck Farm is open again.\u00a0 Yee Haa!\u00a0 They hadn’t closed, they were just taking a week’s holiday!\u00a0 Sunday lunch, here we come!\u00a0 We took Angelique and Ingrid with us.\u00a0 They are too busy with their lovely new house to be looking for dining possibilities.\u00a0 They are happy to let us do the research!\u00a0 Absolutely superb!\u00a0 We were joined by 16 motorcyclists from Brive on a Sunday outing.\u00a0 The place was full (as usual) and we spent a happy four hours on the five course set lunch.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That included an aperitif, soup, fois gras, magret of duck, huge cheeses, pudding, wine and coffee.\u00a0 The wine kept coming.\u00a0 Finish one bottle and another appears on the table as if by magic!\u00a0 But the thing that sold it for me was the dessert.\u00a0 I chose the cr\u00e8me caramel…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

They gave us a WHOLE tray full.\u00a0 To be fair, three of us chose that sweet, and we were the last customers eating.\u00a0 I guess they didn’t want to store half a slab till Tuesday!\u00a0 So it was whacked on a plate and placed neatly in front of me!\u00a0 RESULT!<\/p>\n

To round off the event, we discovered that the restaurant is “cash-only”.\u00a0 No credit cards!\u00a0 Excellent!\u00a0 Except, as you have probably guessed, Angelique had no readies on her and I was \u20ac36 short of the full amount.\u00a0 Well, that was last Sunday.\u00a0 As I write this, it’s Wednesday and we’ve just got home after two days locked in doing the washing up!<\/p>\n

It’s hot here and for the last few days the thunder storms have built up in the late afternoon.\u00a0 The skies go dark…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

.. and the electrical fireworks begin.\u00a0 This is often, but not always, followed by wind, rain and\/or hail.\u00a0 Last night there was a massive storm, over to the East, in the direction of Cahors.\u00a0 But here in Anglars-Juillac, we largely escaped the rain.\u00a0 This pattern of weather has brought out some unwanted, flying critters which seem intent on draining half of Glenda’s blood supplies.\u00a0 Perishing moustiques!\u00a0 A trip to the local pharmacy is required.\u00a0 As we walk in to the shop, right in front of us, there is an entire wall of anti-mozzie stuff facing us.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Pills, lotions, sprays, pumps, aerosols, anti-histamines, citronella products – you name it, they sell it! \u00a0Clearly, there is a problem locally!\u00a0 Personally, I just stick close to Glenda.\u00a0 She’s a mozzie magnet!\u00a0 They ignore me – more or less!<\/p>\n

I mentioned last night’s storm over to the East of us.\u00a0 Well, today we went East to Luzech for lunch and a walk.\u00a0 Calories in, calories out (theoretically).\u00a0 There is a lovely looping road through quiet garden properties and vineyards.\u00a0 This follows one of the meanders in the river.\u00a0 In past years we have done this on bikes but this time we are on foot.\u00a0 It takes longer to walk than cycle and you don’t get the self-generated breeze.\u00a0 It was uncomfortably hot.\u00a0 But the reason I started on this subject was two-fold.\u00a0 First the ground was absolutely saturated.\u00a0 Massive puddles everywhere.\u00a0 This must have been the centre of last night’s temp\u00eate violente!<\/p>\n

The second point relates to the geography of the area.\u00a0 This map shows our “circular” walking route:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It was about 5 km around.\u00a0 Luzech “high street” is about 200 m long between the bridges at A and B. It is known locally as La Place du Canal.\u00a0 And that is because, many years ago, some bright spark decided to make an aquatic short cut from A to B thereby saving 5 or 6 kms of difficult sailing.\u00a0 The canal (Canal d’Olt) was still in use up to 1929, but it\u00a0was eventually filled in in 1950.<\/p>\n

An old painting of the Canal…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And as it looks today from a similar position…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Our lunch stop location is marked (approximately) on both views with a red spot.<\/p>\n

There are so many things I want to say about this place, I don’t know where to begin.<\/p>\n

Back to the hot walk for a moment.\u00a0 The red line in the map above traces our walk.\u00a0 Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed a tiny deviation about half way round.\u00a0 That is at the church of St-Vincent-Rive-d’Olt.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A tiny oasis of shade where we sat for a while contemplating life, the universe and how to get back to the car (the green spot on the map)!<\/p>\n

The name of the church and of the Canal give away another secret.\u00a0 The River Lot used to be called the River Olt.\u00a0 Clearly some government employee spelt the name incorrectly on some official document many years ago and “OLT” became “LOT”!\u00a0 An easy mistake, especially after a morning in the local caf\u00e9-bar!<\/p>\n

The other way the geography of this area has been “harnessed” is by a barrage and a tunnel from the upstream side of the loop under the hill taking water to the hydroelectric station a couple of hundred metres away on the downstream side.\u00a0 This tunnel is more or less parallel to the old canal system but a little to the north.<\/p>\n

Barrages, weirs and hydroelectric schemes, (of which there are a lot on the Lot, even on relatively small dams) impede navigation.\u00a0 A scheme was proposed by the Association Am\u00e9nagement Vall\u00e9e du Lot in 1973 to renovate, upgrade or rebuild the system of locks on the river.\u00a0 A total of 57 locks, when all functional, will allow boats to navigate from upstream of Cahors to the Garonne – a distance of over 260 kms.\u00a0 But these things take time.\u00a0 Half a century so far!\u00a0 Of course the first 20 years were spent getting approval and a budget from the French government!<\/p>\n

The “improvements” here at Luzech will prove the most challenging.\u00a0 Re-opening the full loop to navigation has been vetoed on environmental grounds.\u00a0 Digging up and restoring the original canal would cause absolute chaos in town.\u00a0 The only remaining option would appear to be the construction of a 11.3 m deep lock giving access to a new 200 m tunnel.\u00a0 \u00a0However, I bet this will cost more than the originally approved budget of 120 million Euros which was to cover the upgrade of the entire length.<\/p>\n

Before I stop this episode, I have some advice for wannabe authentic, rustic French locals near here –\u00a0Chabrot!<\/p>\n

In France,\u00a0Faire Chabrot<\/em> consist of pouring some red wine in your soup bowl as you are about to finish.\u00a0 No spoons, no stirring.\u00a0 Two hands on the bowl.\u00a0 Swirl a few times – then drink directly from the bowl!\u00a0 I’ve done it three times on this trip.\u00a0 Basically raising eyebrows all round, with the more alert onlookers phoning for the men in white coats!<\/p>\n

But it’s GOT to be done!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Duck Farm is open again.\u00a0 Yee Haa!\u00a0 They hadn’t closed, they were just taking a week’s holiday!\u00a0 Sunday lunch, here we come!\u00a0 We took Angelique and Ingrid with us.\u00a0 They are too busy with their lovely new house to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-and-france"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4233"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4249,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4233\/revisions\/4249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}