Kings adventures: Conques; Capdenac Gare; Capdenac le Haut

We revisited Conques but I didn’t expect such a hair-raising and breath-taking drive – in a bad way! Jim refused to go directly to Conques which involved going through La Chataignerie and ignored Nuvi’s frantic efforts at rerouting him until we came to Entraygues where, as we passed a sign to Conques pointing in the opposite direction, he continued on, in his mind, the correct route! He then accepted Nuvi’s direction to take a small road to the right which would take very little more than one vehicle. This road was going up! Next thing there was a car stopped as the driver was in conversation with some road workers. We slowly reversed and the car finally came and passed us. Then forward again to meet a small truck. More reversing. I did not think this was a good road to take but Jim had now decided to follow Nuvi rather than his misdirected nose! So on up, up and round we went for at least 7 km – that took 30 minutes! I took only the smallest of breaths particularly when we were on the verges of sheer drops. We then joined a D road (we were on one called lieu dit something and those lieu dit roads are really only for risk taking/ daredevil natives not for sedate oldies like us). We finally started our descent to Conques – remember Conques is high up above the Lot valley and we were descending from far above . We arrived safely I am happy to say and in need of some resuscitation. We paid our 4 euro for the car park to be told if we put the sticker on the car we could get in free the next time. There will be no next time! We didn’t stay very long just enough time to have a strong cup of coffee and a look in the shops – of course the one I wanted was closed on a Monday!

From Conques we headed for the Lot valley via Flagnac where we didn’t stop and Decazeville where stopped for lunch – quite good. Then we crossed the river to Capdenac Gare which has a very interesting church with lovely stained glass. Even the entrance door was stained glass but looked like metal from the outside.

Then it was onwards and upwards and round and round again as we went to to the aptly named Capdenac Le Haut. This is another of the most beautiful villages in France. We did a tour of it looking down at the view over the Lot valley.