Having had a recommendation from Marie Cécile, we booked our tickets online two days ago and managed to get on the first tour of this bank holiday Thursday. Very well organised to keep crowds flowing but we got there before many were in the car park and had a boat to ourselves with Chloe, our guide in English who had spent two years in Manchester.
Édouard-Alfred Martel was 30 years old when, in 1889, he decided to explore the Gouffre de Padirac, funded by George Beamish who he met by accident in Paris after leaving his plans on a carriage. It is now known as the second largest cave system (with 20 km of underground caverns of which we saw 1km!) in France after Lombrives in the Pyrenees.(39km). They were expecting 8000 visitors today!
After about an hour and a half underground we then left to start our walk at 11ish across the limestone causses to the beautiful village of Loubressac (aftr about about 5 km) where we had our picnic on our little stools, looking over the valley. Click here for the GPX recording of the walk.
And then on to Autoire another very pretty village down a steep path with some lovely views of the town. This was a bit busier with a very busy restaurant and then a waterfall that everyone around seemed to have walked to!
After a little rest (it was quite a steep walk) we continued to the top of the waterfall and then up to the top of the cliffs again with amazing views.
We didn’t quite make it to the Chateau des Anglais which was a ruined tower at the very base of the far cliff on the left on the photo above. But we did manage 17 km and got home for 4.30pm, in time for a well earned cuppa and a rest.