The page is dedicated to the memory of our very good friend, Chris Gillin, who has recently embarked on the final great adventure.

Saturday, September 13, 2003 It is our first night in the rural hamlet of Puymule, near the Dordogne River in southwestern France. For a couple of weeks we are renting an old stone farmhouse that has been converted into an elegant and comfortable vacation home. In France such vacation rentals are known as "gites", with a soft "g".

There are a few sheep with newborn lambs browsing in the adjacent walnut orchard. The sheep move away and the lambs frolic wildly when I enter the field. Sheep are not intelligent but they are cautious. Maybe if I sit for an hour or so they will come to me. The green outer husks of the walnuts are beginning to split, and occasionally I can hear one fall to the ground. Photo is by Katie.

Puymule is at the southeast end of a ridge which, from here, runs abut 5 km northwest to Castelnau. On the north Puymule overlooks a green valley which contains the market town of St. Cere and the Chateau Montal.

To the south is the valley of the Bave with Autoire and Loubressac perched on the far cliffs. At the northwestern end of the ridge is Castelnau, a 14th century military castle with 10th century roots. It looks down on the Dordogne river valley. Castelnau is one of a string of castles which were used by the French and English during the Hundred Years' War.

One clear morning I cycled down the ridge to photograph Castelnau at sunrise. The light is reddish, but the stone is also very red. This is the back side of Castelnau, away from the Dordogne river. Just below the wall are a cluster of private homes and a church.

This is the view of the valley to the northeast of Puymule as seen from Marie France's mother's house. The large chateau in the distance is Chateau de Montal. St. Cere is out of sight to the left.

Chateau Montal is our local chateau; within hiking distance from the gite, about halfway to the market town of St. Cere. Built in 1523 by Jeanne de Balsac, it was restored in the 20th century by a wealthy French industrialist, and is still privately owned. Part of it is open to the public. Photo by Katie.

The narrow lane along the crest of the ridge from Puymule to Castelnau has been paved for more than fifty years. For four hundred years before that it was probably dirt and mud. For two thousand years or more before that it was probably a trail. In the forests across the valley are a few overgrown remains of cobblestone roads built by the Romans or Romanized Celts. While walking one of these roads we discovered a menhir.

This menhir or standing stone was erected by the Celts, perhaps in pre-Roman times. It is one of several in the hills around St. Cere. At the information office in St. Cere you can buy a set of hiking maps which show the locations of the menhirs and other ancient points of interest.

Puymule, although just a tiny hamlet, has its own travel web site.

Here is a barn with a pigeon loft or "pigonier". It is on a tiny side road which branches from the Puymule ridge road near the hamlet of St. Michele Loubejou. Some pigoniers are attached to houses and barns while others are freestanding.

I have heard various stories about the pigoniers. That pigeons were kept not so much for meat as for the nitrate fertilizer they produced. Also that the nitrate fertilizer could be processed into potassium nitrate, a necessary ingredient in gunpowder. At some point large and elaborate pigoniers became status symbols, like the private towers in northern Italian towns.

In a field below Puymule is a two story outhouse. It has stone carvings and I thought it was a shrine. Then I noticed the lid of a large tank just downhill. I think this is a spring house and maybe a shrine to water fairies.

Gif, one of our guests, is British. I said that this area must remind him of the Cotswolds back home. He replied that this part of France is even more beautiful than the Cotswolds. It certainly is much larger than the Cotswolds, and there are many more quaint towns. Colonge la Rouge is just one example.

Puymule is within a short ride of the limestone caves Gouffre de Padirac and Grotte de Presque. The Grotte de Presque is a quaint, old fashioned limestone cave only a few miles from Puymule. In the off season there are very few visitors and you usually get a private tour.

Our fellow travelers: Kathy and Arthur, Mary's sister and brother-in-law, were with us in Paris for a couple of days. But I don't have any photos from that phase of our journey; too tired (jet lagged) to haul the camera. Aaron, Katie and Michael flew from London to the Rodez airport which is 50 km to the south of Puymule. Aaron is always easily identifiable. A couple of days later Gif and Reid flew into Rodez.

Along the road from Puymule to Rodez is the Celtic and Roman hill town of Capdenac le Haut. The picture is of the interior of the church in the walled city. Capdenac may well have been the site of the final, decisive defeat of the Celtic forces by Caesar and his Roman legions. The photo is by Reid. Pretty good but he has been taking classes and has the latest digital camera by Canon. Reid pretty much wins the overall photography award for this year. Several of the better photos on this page are his.

Marie France, Michele and Madame Moulene, the owners of our gite, invited us to roast chestnuts over an open fire.

Mary arranged to carry her office with her. She communicated via the internet. It worked, pretty well, while we were at the gite. The telephone in the gite was not set up for outgoing calls so Marie France let us use the phone line in her Mother's house to get on the internet. Mary is conducting business as you can tell from her grimace.

The residents of Puymule are working on rebuilding their communal bread oven. Puymule and many similar hamlets have communal bread ovens. These ovens look like tiny cottages without windows. The back of the cottage is usually rounded and has a chimney. In the days before modern patisseries people were constantly baking bread in these communal ovens. When someone wanted to use the oven they would stack some wood near the door as a signal. Today the ovens are infrequently used except for a fete du pain, sort of a block party. Over a number of years Puymule's oven was neglected and the roof fell in. Now, because of their interest in historic preservation and hamlet solidarity, the residents are rebuilding their oven.

Last year we attended a fete de pain which was centered on the bread oven at St. Michel Loubejou. The typical loaves of bread are round and flat.

The pooch of Puymule was a frequent visitor. This shy little dog belongs to a woman in Puymule. He would show up upon occasion. French dogs are mostly very polite and friendly.

 I am sitting on the pool deck at the gite. The sun is going down over my right shoulder. There is an autumn breeze in the walnut trees, and I am relaxing.