Bordeaux on the barge Rosa day four-Buzet-sur-Baise

This morning we were due to leave at 9-30 but Nicole suggested we set off on our excursion 10 minutes early so we could visit a local Church on the way. Our American friends said why not go  at 9am so we don’t rush, we were happy with that idea so off we went to Le Mas-d'Agenais to visit the church, now this church is rather special as it has an original Rembrandt painting in it.

But I also found the church quite interesting for lots of other reasons, remember this is a tiny market town with nothing to indicate it was the home of a master piece.

As we left the church we walked through the small town market and the lady who owns the goat farm we should have visited yesterday was there selling her cheese.

We then went to Lavardac to visit a much larger market, here you could buy anything you thought you may need from live chickens to clothing. There is even somewhere to sit and eat the freshly cooked food on offer.

The little dog, I couldn’t resist photographing him. The pedestrian crossing is easy to  spot as you come down the road beside the market place.

After this we visited the village Vianne, The village is completely walled with 4 gateways and the roads laid out on a cross so from the centre you can see all four gates, so no one could enter without being observed.

The outer walls are still quite intact but have been modified over the years with windows cut in them etc. One of the gates overlooks the river where there is an old mill that is in urgent need of love and attention as well as a lock to bypass the river weir  

While we were in the village we had a look round the old church which is situated near one of the gates.  

The whole area and the village in particular is famous for its glass ware, but today there is not a single glass works left in operation, its all gone. There is some very interesting reading about the village on Wikipedia

After wandering around for a bit it was just a 10 minute drive to Barbaste where we were having lunch in an old flour mill. The mill was steam powered with the power plant situated in a cave hewn out of the rock, today that is the restaurant. Needless to say that the meal was first class and the menu is on their web site. We had The  Gourmet Walk plus wines. 

On the walls of the restaurant are some of the old glass blowing tools that would have been used in the area.

The mill stands beside the river Gélise where it was in direct competition with the water powered mills on each side of the river by the pack horse bridge.

It was then a ride back to the boat to set off for our afternoon cruise. This was bit of a sad trip as we passed through an area where there had been some kind of pollution incident resulting in lots of dead fish, some of the Catfish were probably about 600mm long, maybe more. It was rather nice when we had done another couple of locks and got past them .

The old lock cottages are no longer used to house lock keepers  or éclusier, some are all shut up and unloved but some have been turned into cafés like this one. Note the have the distances to the next lock in each direction just above the doorThat night we moored at Port of Buzet which is also a hire base, so we were moored against a nice wooden pontoon

Again we were adjacent to the river and just behind the marina was a river lock staircase of two locks.