Since we’ve found ourselves a comfortable campsite in an area that has a few things to investigate, we’ve decided to stay for another couple of nights to see out the manic four day weekend. Also, the slightly disturbing weather maps in Aujourd’hui (our French newspaper) indicate that we have a period of inverted weather whereby the south of France fares worse than the north so, for the moment at least, there seems little point going further down.

Figeac lies on the river Célé. Flowing roughly south west from Figeac through the vallée de la Célé, it eventually flows into the better known river Lot which, in turn, flows through Cahors. In a previous existence, we’d spent a little time investigating the Lot vallye and, other than St. Circq-Lapopie, had wondered why. In this life time, led by the Rough Guide on Francine’s technologically advanced Kindle, we set off to investigate the vallée de la Célé before our forecast rain arrived.

First stop was the hamlet of Espagnac Sainte Eulalie where there were two surprising things. The first was mentioned in The Rough Guide: “an octagonal lantern crowning the belfry of the church”. The second, not pictured and definitely not in The Rough Guide, was an improbably large French motor caravan which had somehow been driven through the narrow street (there was only one) into the diminutive square of the hamlet where it had been “parked” across a 10% slope at a sea-faring angle healing over to starboard, with its back end blocking half the square.

Marcilhac-sur-Célé, our next stop, provided a picturesque photo opportunity against the side of the valley together with a much more endearing French scene: three children fishing knee-deep in the Célé, armed, in the case of the young girl, with little more than a bamboo pole. Not being one to gravitate towards children, even I found this reasonably charming.

We began our return journey through the intriguingly named Cajarc [we keep transposing this into Carjac) which was, for me, the most attractive place on our day trip – a seemingly charming, typically French small town with folks enjoying street cafes, bars and restaurants. Is this mentioned in The Rough Guide? No, of course not. As with most tourist guides, The Rough Guide concerns itself mostly with things such as museums, churches and mediæval architecture.

‘T was lunch time as we began our return leg along the Lot valley and we were keeping our eyes peeled for a decent picnic site beside the river. There were none. Once again, the Lot seemed to us to be a bigger but essentially dull river that could deliver so much more than it does. St. Cirq-Lapopie is certainly worth an eyeball but that’s about it.

Having failed to find a picnic spot, our picnic was back chez nous with Guillaume.

We’ve had a little rain but poor ol’ France needs more – preferably after we’ve gone.

It’s almost impossible to believe but we’ve been in France for nearly three weeks and we haven’t yet been to a street market. Street markets are pretty much a religion in France except, it seems, in the Marais Poitevin where we spent two of our first three weeks. For some reason the villages of the marais appear to be a bit of an exception and street markets are as rare as hens’ teeth. In areas of France that do adhere to the market religion, attending them is either a matter of luck or must be carefully planned. Some larger places have two markets a week but most have just one. You plan them, or you happen upon them.

By arriving at Figeac on Friday, we happened upon its market which is held on Saturday. Hoorah! We are camped within walking distance of town so, market bags in hand, at about 10:00 AM on Saturday, off we set à pied.

Figeac is not particularly colourful but it has a splendid old metal market hall around and under which cluster many of the modern stall holders. The market is quite large, spreading along several streets radiating off the old market square with its splendid metal halle [market hall] seen in the background of this picture (left). gives an impression of the elegance of the old structure. (The lady in the right foreground is trying to drum up support for blood donations, BTW.) On our wandering way to the market, Francine grabbed this other picture of a local gentleman setting out to market dragging his wheeled shopping bag behind him along one of the typically narrow streets. Slightly curiously and unique in markets of my experience, I failed to spot a fresh fish stall, though that’s possible simply because I missed it in the sprawl of stalls.

Markets aside, Figeac is noted for two things, in the main. One is for some of its buildings’ old solelhos. The town was a centre of tanning in the Middle Ages and the solelhos were open wooden sided galleries on the topmost floor of tanners’ buildings used for drying skins. Now they are converted as accommodation and one can be seen in the centre building of this picture.

The other thing that Figeac is noted for is being the birthplace of Jean-Francois Champollion who famously cracked Egyptian hieroglyphics by deciphering the triple text of the Rosetta Stone (it says here). This is a little difficult to capture photographically although there is a museum with hieroglyphs placed strategically. The market got in the way, though. 😀 It must have been arduous work because the poor man died aged only 41.

Hopefully we will live long enough to stay here for a day or two before moving on to our next stop.