I had forgotten how early the day starts in the countryside.
It had been dark when my friend’s car pulled up her drive the night before. After a good cry, I had cleaned myself up and gone back to the station agent. With some prodding he advised me that another train was available, but that it would deposit me in Sarlat four hours later than the first one would have. I had (amazingly) convinced a second Brit to share her phone, and during the call my friend had agreed to the new course of action. I even had enough Euros to buy a coffee and a pastry (but not a sandwich) from the Café Paul next to the MacDo’s* in the station.
By then the heat had grown from steamy to sweltering. I scoured the station for a less hot place to rest. In the end, I returned to my previous position on the main platform just outside the doors to the station. I glanced at the pages in my book. I watched the trains arrive and depart. But mostly I sat, exhausted, with no plans beyond this stay and my return to the US, wondering what I had gotten myself in to.
Trains came, trains went. I heard half a dozen languages: French, English, Dutch, German, something Latin (Italian? Portuguese?), something Scandinavian. At one point a group of girls, each sporting a boogie board and an ear to ear smile, bubbled by. (Oh, that’s right, Bordeaux is on the Atlantic coast.) Gendarmes armed with military rifles arrived to patrol the platform. Another TGV arrived and departed, but the gendarmes remained.
After a while, my train appeared on the departure board, track ten. I made the trek to the platform (with a luggage assist up the last batch of stairs by a nice Frenchwoman and her daughter) and, in time, boarded the train. Soon we were off, through the countryside, past vineyards, sunflowers and other small-batch crops on a track that followed the Dordogne (Dore) River upstream. At one station, the driver stopped for a smoke. At another, unscheduled, he picked up a co-worker. It was sunset when my friend met me, waving, on the platform at the end of the line.
And now, in what felt like far too short of a time later, sun was streaming through the window, and my friend was imploring me to meet the day.
The thing I noticed was the quiet. I could hear birds chirping, insects buzzing, sheep bleating somewhere nearby. I lurched out of bed and, as I steadied myself, gazed out the open window. The sky was blue, and a small garden (wisteria, roses, poppies, lilac and sage sheltered by Japanese cherry and walnut trees) separated the cottage from a long lawn and the pastures beyond. The wind was warm on my skin, pleasant, but with the hint of a cloying heat to come.
After a breakfast of yaourt (yogurt), muesli and fresh peaches (swoon) we were on our way, zipping through fields and orchards in her tiny Peugeot, on our way to the local marché.
More soon!
