Gite Puymule

We are now in the second week of our stay in Puymule, a small hamlet located between the towns of St Cere and Bretenoux in the Lot Department of the Midi Pyrenees. The hamlet is on a ridge line and just 4 klms from the old fortress of Castelnau-Bretenoux. The views extend from St Cere, through to Loubressac and beyond.

This is a very well located gite, fairly recently renovated and one of the biggest we have rented with all facilities we could need. The gite can sleep up to nine adults with three bedrooms and two fold down beds in the living room. There is a large open family room with the kitchen at one end and a fire place at the other end. There is a single bathroom with shower and bath and a separate toilet. Outside, there is a vine covered verandah with a great table setting overlooking a 10 metre swimming pool. A shower and change room for the swimming pool and small children’s swings, slides etc completes the outdoor area. Whilst the footprint of the land is not large, the orientation of the gite and the well established gardens give the whole place a very homely feeling.

We feel that with a few minor changes in the kitchen and living areas and a bit of an overall clean out, this place will be a great place to stay for a few weeks or more.

We spent most of the first week just slowly re-acquainting ourselves with this part of France and getting in the basics that we will need. We have completed three or four good walks from the gite and have limited ourselves to just short visits to St Cere and Bretenoux for essentials, apart from a night at the movies with just 8 other locals to see La Mome (The Kid); the story of Edith Piaf. Over the week we went through a range of feelings from, ‘been here done that’ to ‘wow! how many years can you spend here just taking in the ever changing countryside’. As far as potential acquisitions go, we are now tending towards a place where you can easily walk into a café or boulangerie, or about 3 klms maximum from a village.

Saturday we drove over to Brive (< 1 hour) and enjoyed a great game of first division rugby. Sunday we drove up to Paris and now we have returned from there with our daughter Rachael and her two fine men Ashley and Jayden. And so our tourist activities have sped up a bit. Tuesday we went to a Foire aux chevres et aux chevaux at Turenne and although the weather was not the best, we had a great afternoon. We also wandered around Collenges la Rouge. Today we checked out the market at Beaulieu sur Dordogne and Rachael and Ashley enjoyed a tour in the Gouffre de Padirac while nana babysat.