Tuesday, 18 November 2014

Catching the Train to les Gorges du Tarn

The station at Tours has a series of 18 painted ceramic panels decorating the walls. Their purpose is to beautify the station concourse and entice travellers to the destinations portrayed. At present the panels are badly in need of conservation and a crowd-funding campaign is underway to raise the money to save them. Each panel will cost €8000 to clean, conserve and reattach the tiles to the walls. To donate to the restoration fund go to Ulule Gare Tours.

We thought that it might be fun to show one of the panels every now and then, with the timetable information for how one gets there from Tours today. Sadly, getting to the Gorges du Tarn is obviously a long and convoluted journey these days if you want to go by train from Tours, but it does involve catching a sleeper train, so that could be fun.

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Loire Valley Nature: A new entry has been added for Mosaic Landscapes, a sort of overview of typical landscape scale environments for the Touraine Loire Valley and Brenne. A single photo at present, but more will be added eventually.
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A la cuisine hier: Tomato soup, made by roasting boring supermarket tomatoes with onions and carrots then pureeing and adding vegetable stock, tomato powder, a dash each of balsamic vinegar and worcestershire sauce and some seasonings.

Drop scones, or as you may know them, pikelets, or Scottish pancakes, or dropped scones. I haven't made these for years.

10 comments:

Colin and Elizabeth said...

Drop scones... Elizabeth makes them all the time.... Usually in the middle of the night... Gluten Free of course!

Susan said...

Colin: Do you get to eat any of them?

Betty Carlson said...

This is a fascinating post. I studied in Tours in the 80s and have a very vague recollection of these wall panels.

Now I live near Rodez, about 45 minutes away from Les Gorges du Tarn, and am fascinated by the research into this itinerary.

One detail -- Aguessac is pretty much just a suburb of Millau. Can one actually get into the heart of the Gorges du Tarn themselves by public transit? I think this might be difficult.

chm said...

In 1941, my brother, sister-in-law and I walked the gorges du Tarn from Millau to Sainte-Énimie, with a memorable overnight stop at the château de la Case.

Colin and Elizabeth said...

Susan... the answer is no

Susan said...

Betty: We suspect getting right to the Gorges is probably difficult on public transport. Simon chose the nearest place with a station.

chm: That sounds fabulous! You didn't get arrested as spies did you? In 1941 I'm assuming the authorities might have been a bit jumpy.

Colin: Bummer. So Elizabeth scoffs the lot does she?

Ken Broadhurst said...

In the U.S., those "scones" are just called pancakes... or are they blinis. Flapjacks, maybe. Good with maple syrup.

Susan said...

Ken: For a British English speaker these drop scones are smaller and thicker than pancakes (which are crêpes) and they are not associated with breakfast but with afternoon tea, with butter and jam. They are quite like blinis, but made with wheat flour, not buckwheat, and not served with savoury toppings. Flapjacks are something else entirely -- a rectangle of chewy oatmealy slice type cake.

Ken Broadhurst said...

Completely different from the American meanings. Two countries separated by a common language.

Susan said...

Ken: Indeed :-)

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