Unseen St Alvere!

Many of our guests fly to France, our nearest airport is at Bergerac which is only a one hour drive to Les Granges, half way between the two on the D32 between Bergerac and Rouffignac, is the lovely town of St Alvere and for the first time after dropping a friend off to fly back to the UK I stopped for a bit of a wander around.
Usually when passing through you just see a small part of the town, church and town square, a bar and boulangerie, but stop to get into the back streets opens up a very fascinating and historic place.
The original gate house to the walled town still stands (above) which still has signs of the draw bridge mechanism.

Around another corner, the towns very old Lavoir (wash house) area still stands where the stream is diverted through the wash area to give clean water for the women of the village to do their washing.
And below, to the rear of the church, a very old complex of beautiful houses are joined to the rear of the church, yet another view unseen whilst travelling through the town.
Anyone doing the journey in the future I thoroughly recommend a stop off to stretch the legs and have a look around!

Beautiful Montignac

 We went into Montignac this morning, we thought there was a vide grenier (bric-a-brac sale) taking place but we were wrong, it's next Sunday, so instead we had a lovely walk around the town on both sides of the river in the very hot mid day sun.

Around one of the narrow back streets we spotted this pigeon in an old derelict 10th century building having a good look at what was going on from its usual perching place, very sensibly well in the shade!

Rain, what rain?!

After yesterdays post showing the rain we had at the end of last week, I have just taken this pic to show what it has been like all week....look at that for a blue sky!!

Taking shelter!

At the end of last week this was the Roque Terrace, a heavy down pour and the leaves have started to drop from the lime tree, very autumnal. The grasshopper below was spotted as I was just about to go to the boulangerie when the rain had stopped, it had obviously taken shelter from the rain and as it disappeared under the seat when I tried to brush it off, it had to go with me!
   The weather all this week so far has been superb, top 20's most of the day and isn't looking to change until next Monday or Tuesday, lovely!

A little piece of pre-history!

We've been living here for nearly 4 years now and this is the first time I've had my hands on a real pre-historic piece.
Found next to a walking track by one of our guests from Holland who has had an interest in these artefacts for 30 years and has studied and learnt an amazing amount about articles that can be found in this area.
He says this hand axe is thousands of years old, carved out of flint it fits fantastically in the palm of your hand and looks as though it was made yesterday and is still very sharp.
A little hard to believe someone all those years ago sat and made this beautiful piece.

After the ceremony....

 After the wedding ceremony and aperitifs all the guests were asked to proceed to the dining area and after they had all found their places Sara & Mike entered to raptuous cheering and applause from all as Mr & Mrs Diaz.

 In the build up to the sit down waitress served 6 coarse meal, Chef Delmont took 5 minutes out to relax during preparation of the meal, which included a fish starter of Sturgeon with orange sauce, followed by a citron with vodka sorbet, magret de canard with creme de cepe sauce, cheese followed, then by piece montee (pictured below) as the dessert and coffee/tea to finish.

Wedding pics 1 - Sara & Mike

 Where have the last two days gone! At 1pm on Wednesday Sara & Mike had their wedding celebration at Les Granges in front of 65 guests, a beautiful day but not too hot for those in jackets though. After the 35 minute ceremony they were showered with confetti by all the guests before aperitifs were served in front of the house.