farewell saint christophe

We have to have Saint Christophe ready to hand back by 9.30am so it was an early start for us. After packing everything up we had to wait for the office to open so I set out for another run. This time I headed up the hill into town and back out to the Abbey I ran to last night. But instead of coming back the same way I decided to see if the roads would link up, turns out they did - lucky, because the more I ran the less interested I was in having to backtrack.

We had a taxi booked to take a couple of us back to the car, which was at Agen. Mum and I had planned to wait with the luggage. Despite the week on the water, where we started was only a 45 minute drive away. However, the taxi driver had been told there would be five of us and had brought a trailer. He was a bit annoyed we wouldn't all be going too so, decided we might as well go. When we booked our accommodation we didn't know what time we would be finished with the boat so we chose a place not far from where we were, Larressingle. Larressingle isn't far from Condom, which we had to drive through, so we stopped and had another look around now that more was open.


Turns out Larressingle is the smallest fortified village in France. Our hotel was a short walk from the village, which has been restored by the Association of the Friends of Larressingle. The village, built in the 12th and 13th centuries, was very neglected when in 1920, Edouard Mortier, Duke of Trévise, fell in love with it and launched the Boston Committee for Larressingle. The committee raised enough money to buy 14 of the buildings and restore them. Now the village holds a creperie, art studios, museum and other small shops.

We all had a bit of a nap and caught up on some reading before having dinner at the hotel downstairs. After dinner mum, dad and I walked over to the village to explore. Only the crepe place was open. It looked like a beautiful place, even if the crepe place was playing Tracy Chapman as I walked past.