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Thursday, 10 April 2008

3. Cahors in Lot valley


Had a two hour wait in Souillac before my train to Cahors was due to arrive, so had lunch outside the only cafe opposite the station. They must do a roaring trade as the actual town itself seemed a very long walk from the station.

On arriving in Cahors I finally found the youth hostel, which is centrally placed in the town itself but which I still found hard to find even with a map.
The woman in the office said I'd be sharing a dormitory with 27 other people (or something like that). No, I said, the Tourist Office who made the booking said I'd be sharing at most with one other person. She squinted at the timetable or whatever it was on her wall, and silently gave me what I'd originally asked for and had booked.

The hostel itself has a more modern annexe, where all the young ones are shoved in together in large dormitories, and an older building next to it that used to be a convent. The front door was so old and rusted that I doubt anyone had managed to close it for decades. In fact in was always left open at night.
Going in to the right was an old wooden staircase that led up to a lockable door, behind which was the first bedroom.
It was very large and light, with flowery wallpaper and large window and one single bed. But as you have to walk through this room to get to the other two bedrooms it's not ideal if others are staying there. So I chose one of the smaller back bedrooms instead.

My room was very spartan, with old fashioned French floral wallpaper and one bunk bed. I was beginning to feel like a nun after staying there for two nights for it felt rather grim there even for me, but at only 10 euros a night it was helping the cashflow a bit after using hotels.




I liked Cahors straight away and it is a much bigger town than any of the others so far on this trip, with the Lot river running through it and surrounding it on three sides, plus the famous bridge which is said to be one of the oldest of its kind.



I had wanted to take a boat ride down the river but was told that all boat trips were fully booked until the end of the month.

There were also some villages that I'd planned to see both east and west of Cahors along the Lot river, which you can only reach by bus if you don't drive, but the bus timetable was bizarre at the weekend. There was no way of getting there and back. The first bus out was either too late to be useful to look around before the last bus back had to be caught, which was too early to make the journey worth attempting. Or there was a bus at dawn and none coming back. The weekdays had a better timetable but I wasn't sure how much longer I wanted to be in my youth hostel room, and really wanted to see Gourdon before going home.


I discovered this fascinating water clock while walking around the older part of town.


The estate agents I wanted to visit were a few miles from Gourdon, so I bought myself a French mobile phone while still in Cahors as I knew I'd need one for property viewing, although I'd hardly any time left to actually go look at any houses now. It was a depressing thought, but I knew I had to decide on a location first so until I had more clarity around that it was pointless viewing any houses.

For some reason I thought I'd sleep in late Sunday morning before catching the train to Gourdon, completely forgetting about the hostels rules about vacating the room by 10.00am. In hotels it's usually 11.00am. There had been a party going on all Saturday night in one of the apartments opposite my room so I'd been unable to sleep.

In the morning I nearly jumped out of my skin when someone came thumping on my door. Apparently I only had about an hour to get out. I don't know why the hostel man felt such urgency to kick me out on Sunday morning because I was the only one in that building, but I managed to pack quickly and get ready, and spent my time at the station bar drinking pastis and coffee while waiting for my train.

I just hoped that everything wasn't closed in Gourdon, as is often the case in France on a Sunday, for as usual I had neither hotel reservation nor food provisions.

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