Murmuring not shouting

Into every holiday some rain must fall even if it’s metaphorical. Today was our wet day. Appropriately we went to the aquarium at Le Bugue.

Mirinda loves aquariums. Mirinda hated this one. I have to agree with her. The whole place looked cramped and human-centric. Okay it was part themepark, part fish but even so, sometimes an animal place should cater to the animals rather than focus 100% on children.

We did come away with one extremely delightful bit of information and that was the spatula baluga fish. It has a flat beak-like nose which acts like a sonar, picking up vibrations for up to 9cm. That’s pretty amazing for a fish that resembles an aquatic Jimmy Durante.

I guess I should have realised it wasn’t going to be the best visitor site when, at the very first tank, faced with a Myocaster, I mentioned that it was a Chilian beaver. In my defence it was what the sign said and I was merely letting Mirinda know because she thought it was some sort of capybara.

Myocaster on top, fish underneath

Suddenly, out of nowhere, this tiny woman in an official t-shirt explained that it was not a beaver at all! She pointed out to me it’s long thin tail whereas beavers have flat tails. I agreed with her, vaguely trying to explain that I was just reading the sign behind me.

It seems that the myocaster shares more characteristics with a beaver but it has the tail of a rat. I’m not sure why she needed to correct my correct assumption. Still, it’s always fun to be corrected by enthusiastic youngsters.

We wandered around the tanks, trying to see through the murk and floating weeds until we came to the alligators. They have a big collection of alligators at Le Bugue. They don’t do much probably because they are bored shitless.

There’s a lot of stuff about Louisiana and Florida and alligators (I didn’t know they are unable to eat vegetation because their stomachs can’t process it and their teeth are ideal for eating fish) and, frankly, the animals looked as bored as me.

The beluga fish also looked a bit bored but I think that’s because there were so many of them crowded into their albeit big tank.

I’m not going to waste anymore bytes or time on the aquarium except to say that having seen Les Vallee de Singe, I feel all animal parks will have to attempt to reach their high bar of animal welfare and quality of life.

Of course we managed to spend a few hours on our favourite terrace overlooking the Dordogne and Vezere confluence at Limeuil before heading back to the gite for a cool down in the pool and general rest up before heading out for the evening.

We’ve seen a lot of posters and handouts advertising the incredible light show put on every night against the wall of the church at Saint Avit Senieur so we were quite keen to see it. It’s called the Murmurs (‘wall-wall’) and it goes from 10pm to 1am every night. We decided we’d eat in the town and just hang around for the lights.

Before we headed into the village, however, we decided to visit another little medieval place called Montferrand. We had a lovely wander around including popping up to visit the (mostly) ruined chateau. It’s not open to visitors as I think somewhere lives there, evidenced by the curtains on the few windows. However, one can wander around and admire the towering, crumbling walls.

The villagers were about to have a night market so we reclaimed the car and left before things became too crowded. The village boasts a delightful little church, Saint Christophe, so we decided to head up and see it.

Like Saint Martin’s chapel, it sits inside a small churchyard full of family graves. Unlike Saint Martin’s chapel, it was open. And what an amazing little place it is. The 12th to 15th century frescoes are incredible though fading away in some instances and inexplicable in others.

Is this the bull of Greek mythology? Inappropriate appropriation, if you ask me. Where’s the winged bull in the Bible? With the Giants, maybe.

The little church of Saint Christophe was a bit of a highlight, especially for today if not for the whole trip. Beautifully understated, simple and peaceful atop its hill overlooking the Couze Valley.

So, back to Saint Avit Senieur to go and eat…except, like Mary and Joseph, there was no room at any of the inns. We didn’t see any stables so, having had a brief argument about my inability to make phone bookings to French restaurants, we headed back to the car and returned to Cadouin and the wonderful Restaurant l’Abbaye from the other night.

I forgot to mention the very delicious garlic soup each customer gets as the first course. It is a regional dish and, as long as you like garlic (a lot), brilliant.

Anyway, the staff remembered us, fitted us in and we had a delicious dinner that helped defray a few tempers. We then headed back to Saint Avit Senieur for the lightshow.

In a word it was pathetic. Lights with some sort of strange pattern in them that changed once was about it. Hardly warranted such high scale advertising. Damp squib about puts it in context. We snapped a selfie then went back to the gite for our final night in Tremolat.