We woke to a rainy morning, but since we had planned to do a car trip today anyway, we were not too worried. Our plan was to visit a few sites in the region, with Pete and Vicky, that we particularly enjoyed in the past, plus one new destination for us. So, Montricoux, Bruniquel, St Antonin Noble Val and Grotte du Bosc.

Our first destination was Montecoux, a small village to the east of Montauban that we had accidentally passed through last year when we got lost on the way to somewhere else! We had seen a advertisment for a Vide Greniers (French flea market) taking place there that day so we thought it would be a good experience for Pete and Vicky. But when we got there it was still drizzling, and a local cross-country run was taking place though the town. As a result, access was rather difficult. So we just parked and walked around with umbrellas. One thing we noticed was more of the brick infill between crossed timbers, and lots of “roof gardens” growing on top of tile roofs. We never did find the vide greniers (we suspect it was hidden behind all the barriers for the cross-country run), so after a while we hopped back in the car and headed to the next destination.

The town and chateau of Bruniquel is located on a hill above the Aveyron River. We came here last year with the band for a medieval festival, but today it was very quiet and we had the place almost to ourselves.

The old wine press, the carved capitols and the wooden struts in the attic were impressive.

We also found sections of the Chateau under continual renovation that we had not found last year. This large (5m by 2m) ornate carved wood chimney breast above a huge fireplace was something to behold. We look forward to future years when more of the restoration has been completed.

After several hours exploring Bruniquel, and stopping for a coffee in a cafe down in the village, we moved on to our next destination, Saint Antonin Noble Val. Rita and I have been here several times, since it is one of our favourite towns. We noticed lots of animals in town, including this cat who was checking everyone out in the town square below, and this dog who was checking his reflection out in a puddle of water.

As we were leaving, we saw that the recent heavy rains had taken their toll on the embankment just above the River Aveyron. We were very glad that this had not happened last year when we were sitting amongst the trees below admiring the view of the river and the bridge.

The final destination for the day was a cave at Grotte du Bosc. Pete had mentioned he was interested in caves, and since we hadn’t explored any in the region, we thought this was a good opportunity to break the ice. The town of Bosc is very small and one could never guess what was underneath. The cave walk was not very long, maybe 200 metres, but was expertly commentated by a young speleologist (even though it was in French - I got some translations from Rita, but didn’t really need that much since many of the technical words were readily identifiable). Lots and lots of stalactites and stalagmites, in all different colours.

They had a particular type of young formation that they referred to a “shark’s teeth” as seen in the photo below. We also spotted a couple of salamanders. I thought the first one looked like a plastic one placed in the cave for the benefit of visitors. but when the second one moved, I realised they were for real (or else they had very small motors inside).

After an hour’s drive home, we retreated to au Bureau for an easy and relaxed dinner, during which I kept checking the result of the Speedway World Cup Final in Denmark. Sweden were surprise winners, with Australia fourth (or last) but only by a few points - a very close result.