[Itinerary Page]The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
Hanging Out
Today was going to be another hot one with cloudy, cooler and perhaps even some rain forecast for Thursday and Friday. For different reasons, the group all headed in separate directions today.
Eric and Heidi opted for a five-hour canoe trip down the Dordogne from La Roque-Gageac to Beynac. I loved the idea of that but was afraid that five hours of sun exposure would have been disasterous.
Steve and Lynn headed off to St. Cirque Lapopie, a hanging village above the Lot River about two hours south of here that Rick Steves spoke glowingly of. Since that will put them in the vicinity of Cahors, I'm hoping they will bring back about two more 5-liter boxes to get us through the rest of the week. (I picked up the one today that the lady in the wine shop ordered for us).
So Margene and I had the place to ourselves. We drove to St. Cyprien because we heard they had a Wednesday market and we wanted to pick up a few things to go with tonight's soup, but there were only a few stalls and nothing particularly interesting other than some awesome strawberries!
Then it was a quick stop at the small local grocery for clothes line and clothes pins. This may be the last day we can hang clothes out and this place sorely needs somthing more for that than a bent drying rack.
All this is rather pedestrian stuff, but it is the essence of what is known as slow travel, where you become a temporary local for a week or two rather than constantly getting up at dawn to go to the next stop on the itinerary.
Our theory is that you must always travel with the idea that you will be back and what you miss on this trip you can see the next time. Sooner or later you will be wrong, of course, but by then it won't matter!
So essentially all we did today was sit in the cool of the house -- Margene reading, me on the computer editing photos and trying desperately to get caught up on the daily diary -- both of us watching the flow of life on the river.
Eric and Heidi are back. We need bread for dinner and probably a few more bottles of wine just to be safe, so there is work to do before the shops close. Hopefully my Internet access will be better at the cafe down the hill and I can finally get all this off to you.
© 2011 Restaurant Doctor