Another day out to ‘Plus beaux villages de France‘
Although I’ve put a link to the ‘official beautiful villages’ website above, I had better point out that Saint Yrieix (pronounced Saint ear-ee-a) is not in fact officially listed on the site! But, it definitely should be in my opinion!
It’s a shame that the weather was a bit grim the day we visited this village – quite warm for this time of year but drizzly and grey. Still, it didn’t dampen our enthusiasm , even when we realised that we had actually been before, ironically also in the winter time when it was bitterly cold. On that occasion we were not impressed with what we’d seen but unbeknown to us we’d completely missed the best parts; including the medieval quarter. This time we were recommended the visit by a family visitor, who wanted us to accompany him on a reminiscing trip after visiting St Yrieix over 30 years before in 1982. He persuaded me when he mentioned a visit to a factory shop at the Madeleine cake factory!
We set the Sat Nav knowing it would take us via ‘a scenic route’ (it’s a long story that I’ll tell you about in another post) as we were in no rush and just out for a nice ‘day out’. The journey took about an hour and half and we’d planned our ETA for lunchtime. So, that was our first port of call. We quickly found a lovely little restaurant ‘La Bonne Cave‘. We checked that the staff were happy for our dog ‘Ruben’ to come inside the resto with us – fortunately the French are very ‘dog friendly’ and settled down for some traditional French fare. We ordered the Menu de jour and at just 10,50 € I should have realised it would be a gamble. I couldn’t believe it when the waitress placed the plate of Andouillette sausage in front of me for the Plat de jour. Have you ever tried Andouillette sausage? I ordered it by mistake when we first moved to the Dordogne 8 years ago and swore it would be the first and last time. Just google it, there are some interesting sites about this stinky regional delicacy. I dare you (if you’ve never tried it) to eat it!!! Feeling brave I hovered my nose over it and was surprised not to find any repulsive smells being emitted, it actually smelled quite pleasant – perhaps I was just really hungry. I broke the sausage open and the meat spilled out onto my plate like gutting a pig… no going back now! I pushed some onto my fork and tried it… It was actually ok. Surprised at my own courage I took a decent slug from my verre du vin rouge and went in for a second go. It actually got better the more I ate and I managed to finish it off although, I have to confess to not eating the skin. Whether it was the vin rouge or, I’ve just got accustomed to French cuisine I’m not sure, but, I still don’t think I’d knowingly order Andouillette again in a hurry!
Moving on, we paid the bill and left. It was now after 2.30pm, the shops were all open again but we first went for a saunter around the medieval quarter and the Romanesque church, I took a few photos but they really do not show it at its best so have not added them to the post. We’ll come back in the Spring or Summer and take lots of photos then. There were quite a few quaint touristy shops to browse around as well as the porcelain factory shops (after all we are in the Limousin region, famous for it’s porcelain). I was in my element… unfortunately it’s a bad time of year for us (all our fiscal obligations arrive at once: Taxe d’habitation, Taxe Fonciéres, Taxe de Sejour and Taxe Sociaux) so I have to be frugal with the purse strings: even that gorgeous hand knitted hat set that I’d die for in a chapeauxerie (hat shop). C’est la vie!
Having ‘window shopped-out’ we made our way back to the car and headed off to find the Madeleine cake factory shop. It was actually on the road heading home (D704) about 3.5km outside of the village. All my good intentions went out the window and I exited the shop 15 € lighter with a bag of goodies that will no doubt be devoured within the week.
We’ll definitely be putting a date in my diary for another visit next summer – Bonne Idea!
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