Le Romarin

Tips for a week in Le Romarin

You might spend a week in this holiday home (or longer). We have compiled a list of tips that you will receive when you rent our house. Here are some of them: markets, walks, antiques & brocante and towns & cities. Also some sports tips (paragliding, karting, boat trips).
Swimming, walking, table tennis or badminton, petanque and barbecuing are always possible on site. But if you want something different, here are some ideas for your holiday. Have fun!
We show you the way to the best baker in the region, where people come from far and wide to eat the traditional bread with nuts and wine, or with bacon and olives.
On Sundays, you can walk around the market in Montcuq and buy food for the coming days. Apart from the usual vegetables, cheese, sausages, olives, you will also find wine and spirits, special products such as duck breast, duckillettes, wild or cultivated asparagus, chestnuts, etc. (only in season, of course). (only in season, of course). The spice and tea merchant has an overwhelming choice. Furthermore, there are bags, clothes, handy things like knives, wallets, tablecloths and bedding. In summer, there are also more tourist-oriented stalls with toys, jewellery and belts.
If you don't want to return home immediately, you can have lunch on the square's sunny side terrace (the salads are excellent). You can spend the afternoon walking along the famous tower of Montcuq or another (marked) walk in the area.
Usually, in the summer, there is a vide-grenier or a brocante somewhere in the weekend. Often indicated on signs along the road, but also on the internet (http://vide-greniers.org; search for departement 46 or Lot). And certainly in the local magazine La Dépêche, but of course you have hardly read that yet.

Monday is the most boring day in France: many shops are closed and many catering establishments also. So maybe a good day to stock up on all the basic necessities in the supermarket, the Carrefour in Prayssac is our favourite. Don't forget the charcoal for the barbecue! You can then use it immediately when preparing lunch or dinner.
Hiking: there is for example a dolmen hike at about 13 km distance. See the information in Le Romarin. With a bit of luck, you will not only see beautiful flowers and plants (orchids for example) but also deer, which roam freely in the area.
On the third Tuesday of the month, you can go to the foire in Prayssac: a market with many other things than food.
If you like to browse, you can do an antique tour. We will lead you to a few addresses in the region, including the outbuildings of a chateau: huge amounts of antiques, old stuff and junk and run by two cigar-smoking old ladies. There is also an architectural dealer/antique shop: a large area with (mostly new) fountains, garden statues, old garden furniture, new and old fireplace plates and all sorts of old windows and doors. This is all outside, inside you will find the "armoires", gigantic cupboards and various old tables and chairs. There are real finds among them! Some prices are still in old francs, convert to euros by dividing by 6. And a trader with new garden furniture, but made to designs from around 1900, antique (or at least old) chairs and cupboards and various antique small items (fabrics, plates, clothes).
The Wednesday market in Cahors is a nice day out. Cahors has of course more: after the (morning) market you can have lunch on the boulevard or at the market square. Tip: under the parasols near the new square with the fountains, or at Chantilly on the boulevard with a huge choice of all kinds of lunch dishes.
In Cahors, you can take the walk along all the secret gardens (ask information at the Info touristique, near the big fountain). Or take a boat trip on the Lot where you can look at Cahors from the water behind large windows or outside on the deck. You sail under the famous Pont Valentré, among other things. Choose your seat with the weather in mind. The sun is more tolerable indoors!

Lovers of the big city can drive to Toulouse (approx. 120 km). City walk, shopping, beautiful buildings and the space museum. Toulouse is a student city with a relaxed atmosphere.
A must is the Friday market in Prayssac. The market is divided over many small streets and at least as atmospheric as the much more famous market of Montcuq on Sundays. Olives, paella, delicious bread, goat and sheep cheese, biological products, wine, honey: you will find it here.
Also a nice idea: a visit to Lauzerte, approx. 30 km away (south-west). The village of older (ex?) hippies, who are called "baba cool's" here. Lots of ceramics, hand drawn candles, fluttery tie & dye clothes and nicely meant kitchen stuff. Sometimes there is a market, sometimes a concert and the beating heart is the high square with the galleries and the restaurant La flûte d'or.

And don't worry if you didn't get a chance to visit or do all the things you set out to do - you can come back again. A stay in another season also offers other possibilities. The landscape has a different colour: fresh light green in spring and red-coloured vineyards in autumn. If you come in September, you can pick ripe figs from the trees on the property. You will also find a culinary surfeit on the markets of various kinds of mushrooms but also chestnuts. If you come in spring, there are places where the wild asparagus grows: thin and green. Difficult to find for you but luckily they are also sold on the market, neatly bundled. Buy wild strawberries to go with them for a dessert.
And you can return to places you have already visited that look completely different. For Montcuq on a weekday is different from Sunday. And Cahors in spring has a different atmosphere than in high summer. There is plenty to do in every season.

Sport
You may have missed the sports tips. But of course you can go canoeing in Anglars-Juillac, rent a bike in Prayssac, go karting in Cahors, ride a donkey cart in Villeseque, play golf in Sauveterre, paragliding in Douelle or horse riding in Lacapelle-Cabanac.