Strolling the canals of French Venice
Mercifully, the rainstorm of the previous night had passed, and the sun was beaming once again. We made our way to the market in the nearby town of Lisle. It was a smaller market than Tocane-St-Apre, but it also had a fish stall, so we picked up some mullet to try. After grabbing some bread from the local boulangerie and a quick coffee in the local bar, we headed back to the house. Perhaps one of the most enjoyable things about being in France is the plentiful and cheap access to bread and cheese. We snacked on fresh fruit and cheese while we readied ourselves for the day. It was going to be a fairly quiet day, as we only planned on going to Brantôme (“the Venice of the Perigord”).
We drove the now familiar roads out to the town and found ourselves a parking spot. You’ve got to love the French; they don’t charge you for parking during their lunch hour of 12-2 pm. The town was very picturesque, with the Dronne river completely encircling it and a stately city hall and adjacent cathedral. We took a pleasant walk through town, poking our heads in cute little shops and taking pictures along the river bank. To find a little reprieve from the heat and sun, we wandered into the cathedral. Rather than take a guided tour of the abbey, we decided to head back to grab our books and read. We found a spot right along the river and settled in for an afternoon of reading and snacking on cherries. We watched tourists and puppies traverse the boardwalk. Once we read our fill, we made our way back and headed home, stopping briefly to fill up the car (though we had only used about 20 litres thus far). A little math informed us that we were averaging about 52 miles to the gallon. Hooray diesel!
When we got home, we excitedly laid out our decadent picnic of champagne, strawberries, foie gras, cheese and bread (to celebrate our 3 week and 2 day anniversary)—and it was all good. The foie gras was particularly delicious. We’ve decided to alter the traditional anniversary schema, doing away with things like 1 year paper, and replacing them with things like 3 weeks: champagne/foie gras. We ended up eating so much bread and cheese that we opted to save the mullet for lunch the following day. We finished watching the eminently creepy Shutter Island before heading to bed.
