Our Moveable Feats

June 12, 2026

Cabrerets -> Bouziès

As we approach our 7th decades in this beautiful world, we occasionally mark the passage of time with the passage of others. In the mellow simplicity of long, inevitable, walking, reminders of those who we’ve lost drift in at times, like the perky butterflies that flit amongst the tall grasses and flowers. Parents, friends, friends’ parents and friends’ friends passings haunt us in the best ways.

Today was a day of literal passages, starting with a brazen clamber up to the Pech Merle grotto. This underground cavern has a typical origin story involving some plucky teens in the 1920’s (re)discovering a series of chambers with wild animal art and hand outlines. It remains one of France’s few caves that can be seen ‘for real’ but puffs of green algae, fed by our light, will soon put paid to that. When our guide turned off the lights, it was beyond black, to the point of feeling non-existent.

No photography allowed, naturally, but we got a fridge magnet.

A lumpy track brought us gradually down to the Lot Valley then along a road and under several tunnels. We missed the turnoff to the celebrated ‘defunct railway bridge shortcut’ so took the long way into Bouziès, which we keep pronouncing the alcoholic way!

The next passage was the singular Chemin de Halage, a towpath hacked (and dynamited) out of the cliff on a sharp bend in the river.

After a decade of fascination with this formation and coming oh-so-close a few years ago, it was astounding to scoot along it’s 300m length and help some boaters grind open the lock doors. It’s surreal to imagine, in days of old, workhorses towing barges, laden with coal or Bordeaux wine, upriver to the inland counts and lords of yesteryear. But then again, surely they’d find one-click shopping surreal!

And lastly, that railway bridge? Eiffel geometry and half-hearted warnings proved a bit too tempting.

It’s gonna make a brilliant bike passage.