On The Lot river, 2nd longest river in France, which runs through Fumel in southwest France and many other towns and villages, found the wanderers aboard a small riverboat trip…having postponed from last Sunday due to rain and rescheduled for this Sunday! (Which still had rain but no further postponement opportunity!)
But first, we were taken to a castle, (Castle Fole in the nearby town of Penne) where there was a huge brocante (car boot market) to coin a translation from the recently published book – Living and Loving in the Lot!!! Just saying not a fantastic read!
Temperatures dropped, and rain began to fall….Trudi donned Roland’s Puffer jacket and Sue purchased a pair of jeans (€3) and a mohair jumper (€5) to layer up under the denim overall dress…yes certainly looked like she had dressed herself today – especially when adding the pink plastic poncho to keep the rain at bay! Trudi bought hot chips!!!
Then it was off to the wharf at St Sylvestre where we were going to have a picnic of our delicious homemade sandwiches before boarding our boat….
By now it was raining very hard, but as luck would have it we found, the only, carpark under the bridge….
We stood and ate our sandwiches in the dry area….and with temperatures dropping even more, Roland chose the comfort and warmth of the car under the bridge while Trudi, Sue and Kevin battled the weather to take our river cruise regardless!
Sue, layered and ponchoed up…in all her glory…
Trudi and Kevin, nice and dry under the roof of the bateau (boat) again narrating with the odd French word thrown in!!
The rain eased as we set off…
The water still as a mirror in the unsettled conditions – reflections amazing!
We left the village as the rain stopped and accompanied by a very verbose French lady (giving us a commentary and Kevin giving us the short English version) ….to more stunning mirror images…now for the photo bomb of our trip…
With only us three and four other passengers and one dog, there was plenty of room to duck and dive from side to side and up front…
A castle on the riverbank – 20 rooms that can be rented as a Gite (book a bach)…continuing with the trend….
Fly fishermen on the edge of the river….
Private boats at jetty’s…
Another castle as we u-turned to head back….with having just sheltered from a downpour and yet another drop in temperature…the sun started to breakthrough and the mirror images were outstanding…
Almost like there were two identical worlds…
Houses and trees….
Cloud reflections mirrored in the river as we neared our starting point…
And like Narnia though the mirror to the other side under the bridge…
A group photo kindly taken by one of the other passengers…
Looking back up the river before docking…
An hour and a half later…A fabulous €10 trip that we were happy we ignored the weather and took the ride, donned in all our extra winter vetements (clothes) just to top off the franglaise theme going on here!
Home to Fumel, sunshine and layers peeled off!
All who wander are not Lost girls 