"Overnight in Souillac" Souillac by Goner

Souillac wasn’t our destination, we thought we were changing trains there to visit Sarlat, a town located in the Perigord region of France which is filled with medieval buildings and is good base for visiting the prehistoric caves in the area.

We approached the information booth at the train station and found no one spoke English, more hand signals; we pointed to the clock for time and gave them the name of the town. After talking to all three of the agents, we were sure we knew they knew what we were talking about. The train would be there at 3 pm. We sat at the quiet little train station and ate our train leftovers. My son Dan took a walk around the town, it was too hot for me to walk in the sun, so I lazed in the shade completely content watching the beautiful clouds performing spins and twirls, knowing we would soon be on the last leg of our journey for the day.

Dan came back with stories of the quaintness of the town and a hotel he visited. We watched the time go past 3 pm, then 3:20 came around and I became somewhat agitated. I went back into the station and asked about the train - “trac” in French, they said no “trac”, “bus”, what did they say? Bus, what bus, and they pointed to the other side of the train station where the busses parked. The perils of traveling in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language. However, why didn’t they say bus before???

There were no more busses that day and none until late the next day, so we spent the night at the quaint little hotel. They said they had air conditioning, well air conditioning was an open window. They did have a pool - now that was okay. We donned our bathing suites and walked down the three flights to the pool to read the sign “no swimming”. ‘Why, we asked, can’t we swim?’ The proprietor said we could. Okay, why the sign. The answer was, if you have a pool you can swim in, there is a tax, but if you post “no swimming” - no tax. Makes sense.(:(:. The pool cooled us off, unfortunately we had to dress again to go to dinner. This little town has it’s own medieval buildings and a nice area for outdoor dining. If you’re going to be stuck in a small town in France, Souillac would be a good choice.

The next morning we chatted with a lass sunburned beyond belief, she had been to Sarlat and informed us it was even hotter there...okay, we would head north to the Loire Valley.

• Pros:A Quaint Medieval Town
• Cons:TOOOO hot in August
• In a nutshell:Good place to visit if you miss the buss