Jardins du Sarlat
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44°53’40.1964″N, 1°13’5.0016″E

to

Avis Car Rental Bordeaux Train Station
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44°49’24.5388″N, 0°33’12.7692″W

to

Ibis Hotel Bordeaux Train Station
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44°49’35.1120″N, 0°33’24.5376″W

to

La Taverne du Midi Bordeaux Train Station
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44°49’36.0840″N, 0°33’23.9904″W

Today we travelled back to Bordeaux from Sarlat. It was a 3 1/2 hour drive. About 1/2 the time was on secondary roads & the other half on freeways.

We were sad to say goodbye to our b&b  hosts Wendy & David in Sarlat.  They were fun people to be with. We also enjoyed visits from their cat Tiggy. A very friendly female that Catherine would have loved to take home with her.

We saw Tiggy sitting in the doorway looking out over the front step. Wendy said the cat often sat like that & it reminded her of T. S. Eliot’s poem “Practical Cats” which the play “Cats” is based on.

I managed to catch a photo of Tiggy in her familiar pose & then turned it into a “watercolour”.  Wendy loved it so much that she is going to get it printed & framed.

Photo above  – Tiggy contemplates her morning.

All of the GPS locations at the beginning of the blog look like we did a lot today but we really didn’t.

Sarlat to Bordeaux was the biggest portion of our trip. The Avis car rental depot is across the street from the “backside” of Bordeaux Train Station.

The Ibis Hotel is across the street from the front of the train station & the restaurant we had dinner at tonight is right beside our hotel. So, all told, we probably took 10 minutes to walk from the Avis depot to our hotel & 1 minute from our hotel to the restaurant.

The drive back to Bordeaux was mostly uneventful except that it rained pretty hard while we were on the freeway. The speed limit on a major portion of the freeway trip was 130 km/hr but I didn’t have the nerve to get up to that speed in such a small car & especially during a rainstorm.

We returned the car to Avis at 12:30, well before our 2:00pm due time. In total we have driven Opie the Opal 773 kilometers.  

I actually thought we had driven further but I guess that’s because several of the narrow roads we were on were “white knuckle” adventures.  Oh, & I almost forgot that Opie actually had a 15 kilometer piggyback ride on a tow truck when we had our flat tire.  It’s hard to believe that the tow truck ride was only 15 km. It was so hair raising that it felt like 50 or even 100km!

Good news from Avis – they will refund the cost of the tire to us! Maybe I should have asked them to refund a day’s rental fee as well seeing how that whole misadventure took about 5 hours. But, I think I won’t push my luck on that one.

Photo above – Bordeaux train station. Our Ibis hotel is right across the road from it. That will make tomorrow a lot easier.

Photo above  –  our hotel.  Very reasonable price & clean & comfy.

Photo above  –  La Taverne du Midi.  Our “favourite” restaurant in Bordeaux!  We have eaten here 3 times in the last 10 days. The service & the food is great & the prices are very reasonable. Breakfast here tomorrow morning.

Our train to Paris tomorrow leaves at noon so we will have an easy morning. Time for lots of coffee & maybe 2 croissants!

Cheers!