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We left Benassay around 9.30 and due to a couple of unforeseen hiccups 8 hours later arrived in the medieval town of St Antonin Noble Val.
First mistake was following the sign that read (Bis) Toulouse. We knew that ultimately we wanted to head towards Toulouse, as St Antonin is in that direction (some 80 kms away from Toulouse). After about 20kms we figured that “Bis” must mean “scenic route” or something very similar as while we still headed in the right direction, we certainly were going through some windy time consuming back roads.
We probably lost about 25mins before getting back on track, and heading to Limoges on the A-route (basically the open motorway where you can hum along at 150km/hr and still get left in the dust of the locals in their 1.3L 1987 Peugeot 103) to refuel the car and ourselves, only to find every single petrol station and food outlet closed…even the all providing Carrefour was closed! Not to be disheartened we figured we had another 100kms left in the tank so jumped back on the road.
Around 90kms later with the fuel light flashing we began to get a little nervous, but were
saved when we saw a sign telling us a fuel stop was only 10kms. With fingers crossed we got to the fuel stop to find it was unmanned and the automatic pumps would not accept our credit cards - NZ Visa and Mastercard has a lot to answer for! We tried to get anther motorist to pay for our fuel and accept some cash from us but she claimed she didn’t have enough money in her account (do we look THAT dishonest?). Her advice was to head to another town, 15kms back where we came from, where there was definitely a manned service station who would take our cash.
With no other real option we back tracked very cautiously at 2000 rpms to ensure the most fuel efficient driving possible, and arrived at the servo on little more than fumes. The tank took just over 49 litres of gas, so considering its a 50 litre tank we put that one down to good judgement.
Fully fuelled we reached Cahors, a pretty riverside town, and stopped for a Kaspar feed and to find some amenities for the adults. I have a question - what is with the French and
their lack of public toilets? We drove around the town for quarter of an hour in search of, and eventually found one near a major tourist attraction. But it was literally a grotty hole in the ground with no toilet paper. I know its Sunday and all, but do you think that maybe people will be out and about at a tourist attraction on a nice day?
Without relief we moved on, and wound our way another 30kms to our gite in St Antonin. Atop a forested hill, about 7 kms from the main town is a little piece of paradise. The grounds and buildings are a class (or two) above the place we stayed at in Benassay, and it’s the sort of place you dream of retiring. The owners greeted us with a cuppa and we got the whole story of the place (including the before and after photo albums), from when they bought it 7 years ago (the buildings and grounds had been left for ruin back in the 70’s, there was no water or power), to their continued plans to finish the barn so they can live there over summer while the main house and tower
are rented over summer.
We’re staying in the tower which is a rectangular stone block tower, upstairs and down, with a tight spiral staircase up to the bedroom and bathroom. The tower was completely covered in crap 7 years ago, and you couldn’t even tell it was here.
The husband is a bricklayer by trade and has rebuilt almost all the walls of the tower, the main house, the barn, and the wall on the street front himself - in fact together the owners have done almost everything themselves and only hired help when legally required eg. for permitted connection to the electricity mains.
We’re just settling in for the night in our medieval tower, as the fire flickers away in the corner, and planning our day tomorrow where weather prevailing we intend to take the walking tour of the local township and a few of the other local historical areas including the home of the Knights Templar of Vaour…sounds like another step on the da Vinci code road trip.
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