After our settling in and wash-up, we went a-strolling toward
downtown - along a green and weedy canal that smelled as if it might
have corpses bobbing in it (we saw a tour barge on it and felt a
little sorry for the tourists), then the mighty Garonne (and the
locks of the canal working to get the barge to it - a bit of local
excitement, and there were people standing there watching, having
apparently waited for a while to experience this daily occurrence),
then to the big Capitol square. There was a festival of some kind
going on, with a parade involving effigies of saints and cartoon
characters and such, a bagpiper band (we tried to dodge this, but it
seemed to be following us around). It's a fairly jolly and quite
walkable old city. The gem is the Romanesque Basilica Saint-Sernin, a
UNESCO World Heritage site in its own, so we visited that for a while.

Back home, where we didn't feel hungry enough to go back to town so
just camped out hotel bar, otherwise deserted. One of the front desk
people came out and doubled as bartender.

A half of Terra Nova nv (Gaillac) was rather strange, with more off
flavors than on flavors, but whatever, it was red. I just had a
couple beers. The guy served us a bowl of animallike crackers,
savory rather than sweet. In combination with the ends of the
Iberico pata negra ham (it was still excellent) that Lilli had made
me bring, we got enough to eat,

It was a comfortable sleep, but Lilli and I disagreed on the proper temperature - though there were two thermostats and two units, they
did not seem to be independently settable.

Next morning we headed out, figuring to make lunch noonish at Cahors,
but we had a little altercation with a pillar in the dark and cramped
hotel garage, which wasted a bit of time, and then we did our usual
arguments with the GPS, and around 1 we finally found La Garenne in
St-Henri just north of Cahors. It's run by a busy couple with no
apparent help (there may be someone else unseen in the kitchen).
About 26 covers, but there's seating in the bar area and an upstairs,
so for functions they could accommodate maybe three times that (and
presumably hire help for such special occasions). It's a restaurant
with culinary pretentions.

We (rather, I) started with an amuse of eggplant with basil sauce
(rather, two of them), which was excellent; it came with a crisp
sippet of fried salvage bread.

My starter was simmered foie gras with fig jam and terrine of
fig, all excellent, a pretty generous slace, better trimmed than
at Flots Bleus but not perfect. With this I had a malty off-dry
Ratz amber beer. M. Courtois the other day had given the information
that 300 craft breweries open a year in France alone. This was one of
them, but its product is not particularly distinctive.

Seared medallions of foie gras in verjuice with assorted greens
(mostly frisee), walnuts, and bits of dried tomato pleased Lilli
greatly. We traded bites; she strongly preferred hers and I mine,
the ideal condition. I found hers a bit busy, but when you're
looking for a star, you're looking for a star.

For mains, her filet of French beef with Malbec reduction was
substantial and good, though perhaps I should have ordered it
bleu rather than saignant, because what came was less bloody
than it ought to be. By the way, I had to do all the heavy
lifting in French, as here in the provinces, there is no English.

Lilli had said she wanted either that or the rack of local lamb
in a light sauce, so I had that. It was fatty and pretty decent,
very flavorful, a little toothy (I think Glen would call it
two-tooth hogget), and came medium, even though I'd asked for it
rare. In this case, that might have been a good thing, because
of the maturity and fattiness of the meat.

Both dishes came with very buttery whipped potatoes and a weird
medley of vegetables - broccoli, asparagus, fava beans, cherry
tomato, and eggplant and zucchini in dice. They were all done
together, which meant that some things were overcooked and others
were very overcooked. Not bad tasting, though.

Ch. Lamartine Cahors 15 was good; perhaps excellent if you like
wine with those peculiar anise flavors. Otherwise, good plummy
fruit, typical Malbec.

Despite our having paid for two on the menu, we split a chocolate
lava cake (standard, which means good) with salted butter caramel
ice cream (very good). One for two was plenty.

Off to Cahors proper, where we saw one of the most photographed
bridges in Europe, the Pont Valentire, whereupon Lilli felt odd and
had to sit for a while; then she started feeling really quite ill,
so I took her to a bar where she had a bathroom break, and I a
giant Grimbergen beer. It took her over an hour to recover (at
one point I thought maybe we'd have to abort our trip here), but
sne eventually started feeling less wobbly and nauseated, and we
were on our way back north.
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