Up early to depart from our mooring at La Terrasse, because we still had one final manual lock to do and we needed to have the boat back at base by 9am. The early morning view across the Lot to the PumpHouse Museum and the Fontaine des Charteux (the city's water supply from an underground cavern) looked spectacular.

So at 8am, we left and for the first time in the week we went through the lock alone, and pulled into the Port St Mary base at exactly 9am. Everyone else must have returned last night, since there were no spaces left in which to attempt a reverse right-angle parking manoeuvre (much to my relief), and so we tied up outside 3 other boats, and then carried all our luggage across the three boats to the car which I had brought down to the dock. After some farewell administration, during which we received the map book for the River Lot that we were meant to get at the start of the trip, we headed off towards Ste-Cirq-Lapopie.

On the way, we passed through all the towns we had seen from the river, but at a slightly faster pace than when on the boat. As we travelled beyond St Gery, we saw a sign for the Domaine Dols winery. Since we had enjoyed their blanc sec and rose so much during the week, we decided to go have a look. We found the farm and checked out the Cave, but saw that it was only open from 1600h each day. However, as we were leaving, an old guy came out of the adjacent house, and said that since he and we were there, the Cave was now open! We went inside, had a good chat (well Rita did in French and I listened and followed along with much of what was being said), then bought a box each of the blanc sec and rose. We were really pleased to have stumbled onto the place.

Then back in the car to go to Ste Cirq, via the narrow suspension bridge at Bouzies. We now fully appreciated the tightness of the turn off the main road and onto the bridge! We stopped at a lookout for a view over the river, just above the lock at Ganil.

We then went on to Ste Cirq and parked in the out-of-town parking area and walked down into the town. There must have been a vintage car rally to the area (or maybe just some French out for a Saturday drive on a sunny day), since we saw some nice cars from the 1960’s in the parking area, including a red Triumph Herald which was very similar to my sister Maggie’s first new car, except that her's was not a convertible – haven’t seen one for years.

Ste-Circ-Lapopie is a beautiful old town perched on top of the cliffs overlooking the Lot.

While there were quite a few tourists in town on Saturday, it was not totally over-run, and there were quite a few quiet spots to sit and admire the scenery.

Clearly, Ste Cirq is an artistic town, as demonstrated by the numbers of painters seen hard at their work, and from the front gates on a property we saw.

We walked through the town and then down to the Ste Cirq lock, with its adjacent millhouse.

The view of Ste Cirq from the lock was very interesting, especially the topless bathers on the dock, who looked like they were posing for an Impressionist painter. But on walking by, it was clear that they were just enjoying the sun!

We had heard about the towpath carved out of the rock between Ganil and Ste Cirq, so we continued walking along the river towards the Ganil lock. After several kilometres there was no sign of the towpath and we were now walking away from the river, so given that we still had to walk back up the hill to Ste Cirq and then up to the parking area, we reluctantly abandoned our search for the towpath and turned around.

After arriving back in Ste Cirq, we stopped for lunch at one of the many cafes, then walked back up to the car. As we drove through Ste Cirq and down to the river to commence our trip home to Moissac, we saw the entrance to the road we had previously been walking on. So, since several cars had passed us when we were walking, we decided to go see how far we could drive along that road and where it would take us. After waiting at the Ste Cirq lock while some horses were been saddled on the roadway, we then ambled along the road until we came to a couple of houses just upstream from the Ganil lock. We parked there and walked to the lock, where we found the start of the towpath in the cliff! I now understood why we didn’t find it on our walk. The Guide Fluvial map book said that the towpath was between Ganil and Ste Cirq, when it is actually on the downstream side of Ganil between Ganil and Bouzies! Anyway, it was worth our little drive, and so we now walked the towpath till the rail bridge at Bouzies. The sculpture carved into the towpath wall was very impressive – the smoothness of the polished stone surfaces had to be felt to be believed.

We then backtracked to the main road, crossed the Lot near the Halte Nautique (where Rita spotted the piscine on the river), then drove back to Cahors. In about 7 hours, including our time in Ste Circ, we had covered the territory we had explored in the boat over the previous week! We then took the fast route via the Motorway back to Moissac. In the evening we took a walk along the River Tarn and stopped for a drink at Le Moulin. The warm weather had created a hatching of mayflies that were swarming around most of the lights on the quai and at Le Moulin – a good idea to keep your hand over your drink when not drinking!