The sun was shining as we left Carlucet but very soon disappeared behind thick clouds as we headed up the old RN 20 now called the D820, just to confuse everybody, and eventually arriving in Souilliac where we had a nice cup of coffee and then went to the bank for some cash. Souillac is a fairly quiet and nice little town with an ancient part with lots of interesting shops and it was mostly locals walking around and not so many foreigners.
After about an hour's walk around we want back to car and headed East along the Dordogne Valley in the direction of Sarlat. We then visited the first of three camp sites and the site was jam packed with tents and caravans just like a refugee camp and so not for us at all and therefore we crossed this one off the list. We left the camp site and again followed to road to Sarlat and this road became very busy indeed and although we went to Sarlat last year and gave up after trying for about 30 minutes to find a car park space, this time it was even worse and so our ideas of having lunch in Sarlat were immediately forgotten. The parking around this place is ridiculous and out of control and although we know it is a great place to visit what with double and triple parking and parking where you stopped it was a nightmare and so it took us about 45 minutes to get through to the other side and then start looking for somewhere to eat. We eventually found a nice little restaurant in a place called Les Eyzies de-Tayac Sireuil where we enjoyed the plate of the day which was Roast Pork served with a plum sauce and vegetables. The Pork was cut vey thick and we both wondered would it be tough but NO is was really great and most enjoyable in a very nice little restaurant.
As usual lunch always takes a long time in this country and so after the usual almost two hours we continued on our way East for a while and then seeing that the next camp site was fairly close to Sarlat we also gave this one up as a bad job as well. The final site was near to St Alvere and although the location up in the hills and was great it was also mainly designed for families with children. Leaving there we started to head South towards the Lot valley and went through a nice little riverside town called Limeuil where there also seemed to be a nice caravan site by the river with a small beach but as time was running past we did not investigate further. Continuing South in the direction of Fumel which is a large and boring town on the Lot we crossed the river and then Noel took over the map reading and whilst Noel was looking closely at the map Jennifer,who was driving, missed the small road left turn and we ended up in someone's driveway. A very moustached and well wrinkled French man came out to see what we were up to but when I showed him our destination he pointed to a small road 20 metres away and confirmed that was correct. So Noels SatNav was correct ,although at this time it had started to rain and get dark we finally made it to a small town called Grezels where my younger sister and her husband will be staying in a Gite at the end of August. This town comprising of a restaurant and an antique shop only, and perhaps a Church and so very small. In the past five minutes the clouds came over we had to put the headlights on the car and the rain chucked it down and you could hardly see anything with the wipers working full blast and so we gave this up and headed off via Cahors back to the site where we arrived at around 7.30 pm where it had also just started to rain.
Outside our neighbours caravan was an old beaten up camper van with a young couple talking to John and Sue. It would appear that John and Sue they had visited St Cirq Lapopie and had a picnic by the river and when putting the chair back in the car he put the car keys in the boot of the car and slammed it shut which is great as the rest of the car was locked which meant he could not open the car. Needless to say his wife Sue who has the spare keys had changed hand bags prior to leaving and left the spare keys in the caravan also along with their RAC documents and so they were stuck about an hour away from the camp site. Apparently the youngcouple in the camper van hearing some slight irate language between the two participants decided to see if they could help and they offered to bring them back to the site and in return John paid for their overnight stay and then did a BBQ for them. The BBQ was not the best idea as it was raining and so he brought his gas BBQ in to the awning and the smoke set of the sensitive caravan smoke alarm.
We on the other hand, watched a film called 'The Duchess' which was very good indeed and followed by an early night.
