Rignac & Rocamadour

Friday afternoon we drove three hours south to the village of Rignac (pronounced "Reenyak").

Population:  270 

We found Maud & Jean-Luc's place on Airbnb.com, and what a find it was!  The village is charming, the home is beautiful (and 300 years old!), and Maud and Jean-Luc are amazing hosts.  If you are looking to visit France, we highly recommend taking a trip to Rignac to stay with Maud and Jean-Luc and visit the beautiful surrounding area.

Here is their Airbnb.com listing:  https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2133217

They even brought in a crib for Douglas, which made for two great nights of sleep for Sam and me.

This is the oven which served the entire village years ago.

We wandered around the village after getting settled in our room and we stumbled upon a Friday-night gathering of petanque players.  Sam mentioned that we might be able to convert the grass on one side of our home into a petanque pitch. :)

Saturday morning, after a delicious breakfast of various breads, homemade jams, eggs, milk, and orange juice, we drove a few kilometers to Rocamadour.  Wikipedia will explain the significance of Rocamadour to you:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocamadour

At the chateau on top of Rocamadour

He kept looking up saying, "Hey everybody!"

Looking down from the top of Rocamadour

"Applesauce!"

We ate lunch at Au Panorama.  The white stuff on the two pieces of bread is Rocamadour goat cheese.  It has a very strong taste.

The salmon and lentils were excellent.

Oh, how I enjoyed wandering around this little village.

Maud is a warden of the 15th-century church in Rignac.  She gave us a little tour of the church and she gave Douglas some colored pens and paper to keep him happy.

Beautiful place

"Dad, I have a poopy diaper."

Maud asked us to sing in order to demonstrate the great acoustics of the building.  Sam picked the fifth verse of Nearer, My God, To Thee and Doogles "accompanied" us.  I thought he was drumming with the colored pens, but Sam says he was trying to lead the music for us.

Saturday afternoon we visited the monkey forest.  I thought it was going to be similar to an experience one would have at a zoo (seeing monkeys in trees at a distance).  I was pleasantly surprised to find that my pre-visit judgment of the monkey zoo was completely erroneous.

We had fun mingling with these funny little things, and our visit was perfectly timed.  It rained just before we arrived, and the rain forced us out as we were approaching the end of the walk.

Dad (Kelly), we thought you might appreciate this.

I went back to Rocamadour in the late afternoon in an attempt to get "the perfect shot," but the clouds didn't quite break enough.  And this morning we went back for another try, but the entire valley was covered (and I mean covered!) in fog.  I couldn't see 30 feet in front of me.  Ah well, another reason to come back to Rignac.

We taught Douglas a couple of commands to open and close the car.

We listened to General Conference as we drove back to Vichy today.  For those of you who may not know what "General Conference" refers to, it is a semi-annual conference held by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.  The conference is broadcast throughout the world and the talks are interpreted/translated into 90+ languages.  Here is a link if you are interesting in watching/listening to some of the talks:  https://www.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng&_r=1&cid=HP_SA_1-10-2016_dPFD_fGC_xLIDyL2-4_

We prefer saying "à bientôt" instead of "au revoir" to our friends, Maud and Jean-Luc, because we hope to see you again soon.  You made our visit wonderful.