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!