Condom, May 16-19

So we would have several days to explore Condom.

 One of our first stops was right across the river, the J. Dupeyron armanac house. Here is the wiki page for your education on this delicious drink.  We enjoyed a brief tour through the storage rooms (and their delicious smell!), took a look at one of the older column stills used for producing the eau de vie and saw a short film about the making of the liquor. Then it was on to a tasting where we were given small sips of the three types of armanac, VSOP, XO and Hors d’Age. We went back to the boat with a bottle of their delicious hors d’Age.

Hard to tell in this pic but from left to right those upper barrels are labeled 1976, 1980 and 1981.

Other barrels were from the early 1900’s.

This display case in the tasting room says you can pick a bottle from the year you were born. 

The one from my birth year was one of those little tiny bottles and would sell for around $650.

The other obligatory stop was the Cathedral Saint Pierre with its elaborate rood screen.

I had been in email contact with the waterways authorities about the state of the river. The national VNF does not run the Baise. It is controlled by the local departments but they were very responsive and in contact with Remi, the capitaine. We made a trip to the supermarket Friday morning in anticipation of a departure and by the time we returned to the boat around 11:30, we were told that the river had dropped enough that it was safe for us to get underway.

Lines off, we turned around and headed downstream for a return to the small village of Montcrabeau.