Wednesday 18th October 2023

Toulouse to Souilliac

From the news received late this afternoon we got out of the big towns at the right time with both Toulouse and Strasbourg airports , along with other airports and train stations across the country, locked down over bomb threats.

It might have explained the presence of police on our train this morning, all after me helping a Muslim woman put her bag up onto the luggage rack.

A bit of a slow morning before heading to the train station and hopping on the fast train to Soulliac. Thankfully the platform steps dropped us right at our carriage , the last one on a 12 carriage train.

Pretty sparse crowd, including the 2 police who eyed off every traveller and piece of baggage before jumping off as we left.

Train was quickly out of the city and burbs into the counter dry ploughed fields were the order of the day. Mostly crops, with the odd vineyard. Interesting that apple orchards were planted in exactly the same fashion as grapes.

Up until a major industrial town of Montuban the train tracked a canal which had the odd boat plying it’s way towards the harbour in that town.

The train rattled along stopping several times without dropping off passengers – why I don’t know. We stopped at Cahors a town familiar to me , as on a walk across France we stopped there and I was selected to do the pilgrims reading at the Cathedral.

The on again off again stopping continued the last one with an announcement about a security incident – sure it was just another fare evader like we had in our carriage, not a bomb threat.

After about 15 minutes we were off again and finally arrived at Souilliac , in the pouring rain- with exit right at the front end of station. A couple of wet and bedraggled walkers fell into the back of the tour company van for the short trip to our hotel.

Winners again a lovely place with a nice room and only one set of stairs to haul our bags up.

Another mix up with 1600 and 600 pm saw us miss the briefing with guide, as we left around 430 not knowing she was late.

Despite the rain we did a quick wander around town which was basically deserted probably being mid afternoon closure and end of tourist season. Again the Cathedral and cute houses were the picks of the tour, though we will get a chance to revisit when we finish tour here and use it as s base for a couple of days. Our hotel was right on the river which used to drive the now abandoned huge mill.

Went for a drink and ran into an Aussie and US couple who had finished the last day of the tour and they created great expectations for the next week.

The Dordogne region is renowned for the food and wine and the 3 course meal with realistic sized portions and great taste was to die for.

Off to bed pretty excited about tomorrows trip through the forests snd hsmlets, hopefully with less rain than predicted.