La Roque Sur Pernes

Rose at 05:30, and after a quick glass of juice and cup of coffee, we departed the peaceful Terre de Blade at 06:00. Dropped Michele and the bags off at the Sarlat train station at 06:30, and redelivered the car to the Hertz agent. It wasn't evident to me, but the agent noted immediately that the front right head lamp was cracked. Indeed. I definitely had no accident, but it is possible that someone may have backed into me in a parking area one day while we were in Sarlat or I missed it when we did the initial inspection. Caveat Emptor. Anyway, I had purchased full insurance coverage including the deductible, so it should be covered. The 07:30 train from Sarlat to Bordeaux maintained its schedule fairly well down the line, and we arrived in Bordeaux around 10:30 and awaited our 12:38 departure for Nimes. This train left on time, but lost about 2 hours enroute because an accident somewhere near Nimes where we discovered that all trains were delayed. There was quite a crowd waiting there when we arrived. We managed to arrive in Avignon a little after 20:00 and took the shuttle to the TGV station where we picked up our reserved car within 30 minutes of the rental agent's closing time. We finally managed to reserve a "small" car and thank goodness for that considering the crazy size of the roads in La Roque sur Pernes. We left the TGV station a few minutes after 21:00 hours which meant that it was just a little too late to buy provisions for our week here. So, when we pulled into La Roque with the incredibly useful help of our GPS unit, the night air was approaching darkness and we raided the cupboards for a can of kernal corn which we heated in the microwave and a delicious warm cup-of-soup. Afterwards we crawled up to bed and slept like the dead. La Roque is a medieval town. There's a small monument in town which refers to some Vatican Council of 1370, but we understand that the town is actually quite a bit older than this. The house in which we are staying, Chex Mielitz Crangle, boasts an impressive age of 900 healthy years. The town, like most medieval towns we have seen is built upon a steep rocky hill. The roads are crazy narrow and twisting. Three times I have had to use reverse when negotiating turns...which is why I never intend to drive down rue Portail Haut again. So, we park on the main road below the town square. The church is very near the top of the town, but, according to a woman we encountered departing the mayor's office, mass is no longer celebrated here except on high feast days such as Christmas and Easter. Nevertheless, the mayor told us to come back on Monday and we could pick up the key if we wanted to visit it. So we will. Immediately above the church and commanding a view over the town and the olive orchards on the other side of the valley is Le chateau de Roque, a small but impressive structure which appears, now to be a highly exclusive hotel. We learned of an interesting cultural note of the population of La Roque sur Pernes when we returned to e Mayor's office for the key to the church. There are about 400 people living here many of whom descend from the part of Banatais people who settled here about 50 years ago after the war to infuse some life back into a dying village. The Banatais like to keep a very low profile partly because of their tragic history and mostly because they want to be identified primarily as French citizens. As it turns out, the children who were born here of the original settlers are still here, and the very first child born to the Banatais in La Roque in 1951 is now the mayor of the village. Our final excursion from La Roque brought us to the 60 million old Grotto of Thouzon in which there are some very interesting stalactites and rock formations...also saw a fosilised bat about 5000 years old, and perhaps, most interesting of all, roots from oak trees which had reached through 25 meters of rock.