The
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La Vigne guest house
is situated in the picturesque village of Caumont
sur Garonne, nestled in the beautiful region
of Aquitaine, in south west France.
The départment is
known as the Lot et Garonne and lies immediately
south of the Dordogne, south east of Bordeaux and
north west of Toulouse. It is approximately 130
kms from the Atlantic coast and a little over two
hours from the Spanish border, so ideal for exploring
the wealth of history in both France and the Spanish
border.
Because the area carries
two of France's principal rivers, the Lot and
the Garonne, the landscape is beautifully lush
and incredibly varied. Broad, fertile valleys
wind past picturesque ranges of hills to meet
at the union of the rivers just to the south
of us, at Aiguillon. From there, the mighty Garonne
flows majestically past us, watering the world-famous "Bordeaux" vineyards
of the Gironde, before surging on through the city
of Bordeaux itself, and out to the Atlantic.
Due to the very fertile river deposits and the
huge quantities of underground water available,
the economy of The Lot-et-Garonne is heavily reliant
on agriculture, with tourism still in its relative
infancy. Consequently the roads are very quiet
and, unlike the Dordogne and Provence, few places
are crowded even in the height of summer.
You will see growing in abundance, vines, maize,
all kinds of fruit, fields of sunflowers, vegetables
and many varieties of trees. The Lot-et-Garonne
is also the centre of the French prune industry.
And, of course, with the agriculture comes the
wildlife; you will find many birds of prey here
(look out for magnificent red kites riding the
thermals high above).
Our summers are significantly warmer and sunnier
than further north, with long settled spells. Rain
is not usually a problem as, when it does come,
it tends to be very heavy and of short duration.
The Lot-et-Garonne is France
as most people imagine France to be. Warm, lush,
colourful, picturesque, historic, and very peaceful.
With just 305,000 people in a départment of almost
6,000 sq. kms, the Lot-et-Garonne has one of the
lowest population densities in all of France. It
also has some of the best food and wine, the most
beautiful scenery, and the loveliest and friendliest
people.
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Farming
Agriculture is one of the Lot-et-Garonne’s
main activities. There are some sheep and cattle,
but the land is mainly devoted to food crops. Cereals
and maize figure prominently, as do plums, tomatoes,
melons, kiwis and hazelnuts.
Of these the best known is
the plum, used for making the famous Agen prunes.
English speakers should remember that ‘prune’ in
French means ‘plum’, the French for ‘prune’ being
pruneau.
The local product bears little
relationship to the prunes of traditional British
school dinners, which have put many people off
for life!
Based on a graft (prune d’ente),
the date-plum was probably brought back from the
Middle East by crusaders. Dried by a special process,
it is delicious in many local recipes. Some recipes
recommend preliminary soaking in tea.
In July the Lot-et-Garonne
is a mass of bright yellow as the sunflower crop,
grown for vegetable oil, matures.
The region also produces a
large amount of tobacco, much of which was until
recently processed locally at Tonneins.
On the left and right bank
of the Garonne many acres are devoted to vineyards,
producing excellent AOC wines as well as Vins de
Pays.
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Heritage
The département is a natural extension
of the Périgord and boasts a rich architetctural
heritage.
There is the outstanding
chateau de Bonaguil, and other fine châteaux
such as Duras, Poudenas and Gavaudun, including
over 40 examples of bastides, often with Romanesque
churches, arcades and timber-framed houses. Exceptional
examples of fortified mills, numerous windmills,
many substantial farmhouses with wooden tobacco
drying sheds, there is no shortage of stone and
rural architecture to be admired.
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Down the Canal
and Garonne
Le Canal des Deux Mers is
actually two canals, the well known canal du Midi
and its other branch the Canal latéral à la
Garonne, which as its name indicates runs
parallel with the Garonne river.
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Val de Garonne
East of the Gironde département,
the wide Garonne valley is characterised by its
huge farmhouses and large tobacco drying barns.
The main attractions are the canal villages and
the Marmandais tomato and wine production.
The small town of Tonneins
occupies an attractive position on the north bank
of the Garonne.
This can best be appreciated
by walking along the river just below the main
part of the town, where embankments were created
in the XIXc. The only building of real historical
interest is the Maison du Passeur (Ferryman’s
House), which survived the near-total destruction
of the town in 1622.
Previously the town had been
an important stop for river traffic on the Garonne.
At a time when roads were poor, the river was the
most reliable means of transport, especially for
haulage.
For many years the town was
a centre for the tobacco industry. After its introduction
in the XVIc, tobacco was grown extensively in the
area. In 1726 a manufacture royale was opened here.
The building is now a museum dedicated to the river
traffic of the past and to the rope making industry
which supported it.
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Marmande,
tomato capital of the southwest of France, is the
third largest town in the département.
A turbulent history has taken
its toll on older buildings and fortifications – the
town goes back to Richard the Lionheart (XIIc).
It was he who granted the town its charter in 1182.
However, little remains of
that period, due to the destruction caused by the
Hundred Years’ War, the internal Wars of
Religion in the XVIc and the French Revolution
in the XVIIIc.
What is left of the historic
part of the town can be visited on foot, following
the itinerary called ‘Découverte du
vieux Marmande’. A modern mosaic on the Boulevard
Richard Coeur de Lion represents the town from
the VIIc to the XVIc.
Those interested in churches
should see Notre- Dame-de-Marmande, with its Gothic
façade, historic organ, Baroque reredos
and remains of a cloister.
Apart from its history, Marmande’s
pride and joy is its acknowledged position as the
tomato capital of France.
Don’t leave without
trying some of the region’s famous fruit.
There is a statue of a tomato in rue Toupinerie.
The town’s activities are not limited to
agriculture.
High technology is also represented
by a factory making – among other things – aircraft
components. Marmande’s small airstrip is
the venue for an annual
international flying display by radio-controlled
model aircraft, some of which are up to ten feet
long.
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Gastronomic Delights
To the British, the prune,
a dried plum, is a black and wrinkly fruit endured,
stewed for breakfast, to maintain the regularity
of their inner workings.
Not so for the French: for
them, the beloved pruneau is an important part
of their gastronomy, much appreciated in the south-west,
revered in its fiefdom, the Lot-et-Garonne.
Plums have long existed
here, but when the Crusaders brought back damson
trees from Syria in the XIIc, and monks in Clairac
Abbey grafted them on to local plum trees, it was
discovered that, dried in the sun, the resulting
hybrid fruit could be preserved for a full year.
Later on, plums would be spread
out on claies (resembling giant snowshoes) and
slow-dried in special ovens, examples of which
are still to be found in the region.
Promoters of the fruit, and
they are legion, boast of the health-giving qualities
of their product.
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LOT-ET-GARONNE is
France's orchard and its climate favours the production
of most of the country's goodies. Foie gras is
made here, Louis XIII enjoyed the ham from Tonneins
when he travelled through the town, and the famous
prunes
d’Agen need no further introduction.
Another famous export is armagnac, the oldest eau-de-vie
in France. The name armagnac has various associations
in the area, and can refer to a powerful
family of nobles, related to the princes of Gascogne.
Equally it can mean the land
belonging to this family, and was often extended
far beyond this region, so much so, in fact, that
the English called Joan of Arc an Armagnacaise!
And finally, the name was
given to the delicious distilled spirit with '40
virtues'.
Much has been written about armagnac. Written records
mention an aqua ardente as long ago as the XIVc,
which was used for medicinal purposes. When an
English embargo was imposed in Bordeaux on the
export of local wines, the winegrowers of Gascony
decided to distill their white wines to get around
the blockade, thus producing what we now call armagnac.
The first commercial production
was recorded in 1414. The production process is
a canny alliance of various techniques: Latin wine-growing
know-how associated
with the Moorish knowledge of stills and Celtic
barrel-making methods.
Much appreciated by gourmets
and bons vivants around the world, suprisingly
little of the armagnac production leaves France – the
production area of Lot-et-Garonne, Landes and Gers
jealously keeps at least 40% of this caramel-coloured
liquid.
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The Lot-et-Garonne has
plenty of gardens to delight those with green fingers,
and there are gardens for all tastes.
Stunning examples of French
topiary can be found in the three cloister gardens
of the church Notre-Dame-de-Marmande.
And for a masterpiece of classic
jardins à la française, go to the
Château de Fumel, now a historic listed site,
with clipped yew trees, shady lines of planes and
chestnut trees and a spectacular view of the Lot
valley.
Rose lovers will go petal-mad
in the rose gardens in Sainte-Livrade, near Villeneuve-sur-Lot:
you can enjoy the colours and fragrance of 300
varieties from May to September.
And the Papon iris collection
in Laplume, one of the most beautiful in Europe,
containing more than 1,000 cultivars of the iris
germanica – free in May.
The park is open all year
and there is also a beautiful display of 130 types
of old roses.
If you fancy a walk through
orchards, vineyards and wild flowers, then the
Domaine Les Riquets Baleyssagues, very near Duras,
might appeal, which has special trails to follow,
and a garrigue of orchids.
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