The houses on the stream, the churches on the houses, the rocks on the churches, the castle on the rocks

 

Monday:  

It's actually Wednesday morning as I write this, the rising sun lighting up our room overlooking the Loire River in Saumur.  This is the top floor, and the ceiling with the skylights, facing east, tilts up at a forty five degree angle.  Ancient roof beams and supports burst out of the otherwise white and blue and dressed stone walls.  It's easy to imagine sitting in a garret in Paris, even though this is actually a pretty nice room.

Anyway, Abbey noted yesterday (Tuesday) that it was about the time in the trip where the initial excitement starts to wear off, and she really enjoys the wonderful parts but the not-so-wonderful parts are starting to make her grumpy.  Not that there are a lot of not-so-wonderful parts, but yesterday was also the day that we spent entirely on the bus, driving the 5-plus hours from Sarlat to Saumur.  Not really that bad, but you know how Abbey hates to be cooped up in a seat for any amount of time (the reason she doesn't accompany me on cross-country trips).  Lots of napping and reading.

But we did play a game, called Cheese or Cake?  We got a list of twenty French words, and our job was to decide which item was a French cheese and which was a French cake.  I had heard of five of the twenty, and got them right.  The rest were a flip of the coin.  Some of us got seventeen, eighteen, nineteen right.  There was one (millefeuille) (I forgot which it was) in which the last five letters  were not pronounced.  The French just randomly decide to discard letters for no particular reason, and then make up rules that they say account for all this.  These rules change day to day, for all I know.

(Entrance to) the churches;
the rocks; the castle

Anyway, Monday.  Our days alternate between “been waiting to see this for a long time” and “surprise!”  This was a surprise day – we visited Rocamadur, a medieval pilgrimage site literally on the side of a very high limestone cliff.  The story is that the body of St. Amadur was found in a hermit's cell partway up the cliff, and a whole sanctuary complex (see pic at top of this post) was built around it.  Our guide said that the only thing that we actually know is true is that a body was found in the cell; the rest was probably made up by, in her words, “locals who had a business plan.”  The plan was to find a relic (not that hard to do in the 11th century), develop a 'book of miracles,' build a sanctuary, and profit from the pilgrims.  That's what happened.  To get from the bottom of the cliff, where a town grew up over time, to the sanctuary of the Black Madonna (because it was made of black wood – walnut?) you had to ascend 168 (or 152, or another guess; no official number) steps.  On your knees.  Saying a rosary on every step.  Then something good would happen, like all your sins being forgiven.  Then you walked up the rest of the cliff; the Stations of the Cross were added to that path.  When you got to the top, you continued to, and across, the Pyrenees and on to the Camino de Santiago, where you probably had been heading all along.  The Camino is the pilgrimage route that Quog walked last year.

In the 19th century a castle was added at the top of the cliff, which was a marketing ploy if you ever saw one (what's the point of a castle in the 1800s?).  So the motto of Rocamadur (“Roca” is 'rock;' “Amaudur” is the name of the saint) is: The houses on the stream, the churches on the houses, the rocks on the churches, the castle on the rocks.

It's a pretty cool place, and a popular tourist attraction.  There's a funicular from the top down to the sanctuaries, and an elevator from there down to the town.  The town is a medieval tourist shopping mall, very much like Carcassone.  Some of us walked down the Stations of the Cross path to the sanctuaries, which are pretty interesting, and very picturesque, clinging to the cliff.  The Black Madonna, which is the whole point of this pilgrimage, is in one chapel halfway up the cliff, which is very dark; few windows, and every one of them is filled with stained glass in rich colors.  There was actually a stained glass workshop on that level, but it was closed.  There was an Actual Cat there (like the Actual Cat in Japan, it was orange), who just sat and posed for pictures.

The Black Madonna

We went down the 163-or-whatever steps, and I wondered if, by walking down, we were taking on the sins of those who went up.  There are, though, those who take this seriously.  Our guide told us that there are hundreds of pilgrims who come each September, (it's September for some reason I don't remember), and there are plaques all around and in the Sanctuaries, mostly saying “Merci Notre Dame” (Thank you our Lady), expressing gratitude to the Black Madonna for some miracle that they had experienced as the result of making the pilgrimage here, or maybe the miracle was the reason they went on pilgrimage.  Some significant and poignant event in their lives which changed them, and those around them, forever.  It's a personal connection, like the prayer tags we saw in the Shinto shrine in Tokyo last year.

Lunch was another sandwich (“thon,” which is tuna).  At the shop where we bought the sandwich, we had the most fun we've had with someone who spoke nearly no English.  And then back up the elevator and funicular.  The elevator was in a shaft reached by a passage cut roughly our of the rock.  The funicular was reached through a new, modern sculpted concrete chamber that reminded me of the world of THX-1138.  Then back 'home' to Sarlat and some free time in town before a group dinner.

Today was a bad hip day, so I was dragging through town.  Abbey wanted to go to see a house in the middle of Sarlat that was open to visitors.  I just needed to sit for a while, which I did, on my new cane-seat, and read.  I'll let her tell the story of the house.  The small square where I was waiting had a statue of geese – three life-size brass geese living the good life, on their way, no doubt, to be force-fed for foie-gras.  

And it didn't rain

Then back to the hotel to gather and walk to the restaurant for the group dinner.  We walked – you guessed it! - all the way back into town past the geese, and then up a hill and through some narrow alleys to a beautiful courtyard with tables set for dinner; the perfect setting for an elegant medieval repast.

The repast was the kind of meal that we make fun of:  elegant presentations of ridiculously tiny portions, with little dribbles of sauce, dribbled artfully; three courses over two hours.  Did it taste good?  I'm not sure; there wasn't enough to tell.  Actually, two of the courses seemed tasty; the main course (fish in a sauce) seemed bland.  But there was plenty of wine and we had a good time, and found our way home at last. 

NOTE:

Bonus cat, posing in Rocamdur:

There were literally three beautiful medieval doors within ten or fifteen yards of this cat.  But nooooo.  Gotta pose in front of the modern one.

Are there no other cats outside the US except gingers?