Sunday, May 24, 2015

A jewel of a village: Coussergues, Aveyron


Coussergues, looking a bit like a village in Touraine for some reason

Coming on to the last of our exceptional string of long weekends here in France, I really hoped to have a lot of new, local adventures to share. But the weather has really got into the way.

Let me explain: May can have anywhere from no official long weekends and just one potential long weekend, to three official ones and one potential one. This year we got the jackpot. May 1st (La Fête du Travail) and May 8th, to celebrate the end of World War II, were both on Fridays, making for automatic long weekends.

Ascension Thursday is always a public holiday, but can be earlier or later in May. This year it came right on the heels of the May 8th holiday, and since our building closes for the Friday following, I got another long weekend last weekend.

But of all of those days off and weekends, really only Sunday May 10th provided me with beautiful, warm, exploring weather. That is when I went to Palmas, which I wrote about in my last post, and also discovered the charming village of Coussergues, located between Laissac and St. Geniez d'Olt


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Coussergues is impressive for its two church towers of approximately the same height. 



This is the "modern" church, built in the 19th century. This type of church is not considered much of an attraction in these parts, but I found its location attractive and liked the way it stood out in the middle of the village












The bell tower is all that remains of the 15th century church, just a few steps away from the "new" church. 


This church used to serve as a shelter for village residents, perhaps during periods of attacks from enemies.


Its fortress-like aspect strikes a sharp contrast against the more clearly "churchy" modern edifice. 







A place to be explored...

Like just about every place I have visited since I started up my perigrinations again last fall, I told myself I needed to come back when I had a little more time. And if I just were to carry on a few more kilometers, there are many other places to explore in the surrounding countryside.


No sign-posting here

I ended my visit to Coussergues sitting on a conveniently-located bench in front of this intriguing little fountain.

Like so many other structures in France, no sign indicated a thing about its age or origin.

As I write this, it is our last in the series of long weekends -- Pentecost weekend, with Monday being a public holiday. Pentecost weekend is more often in June, but the church calendar this year piled it up right after the string of three other long weekends.

The weather has been gloomy, if not out and out cold, so I have nothing more recent to add. 

But I can always hold out hope for tomorrow. 


Lou Messugo

6 comments:

Sarah said...

What a lovely village.

We thought motorbiking up to Rodez last weekend but the weather looked distinctly dodgy, so we stayed further south and ended up in Castres. Also a picturesque place.

A Green and Rosie Life said...

You are right - that really does look like a jewel of a village. Hopefully your weather is warming up at last. The weather forecast I saw for this weekend looks HOT!! #AllAboutFrance

Phoebe @ Lou Messugo said...

You may not have had good weather for all of the long weekends recently but you certainly hit the jackpot with the light in this village. Your pictures are gorgeous Betty! We had weird weather in May and now have 38° - it's all about extremes nowadays isn't it? Thanks for linking up again, did you see my special mention of your last month's post?

Michelle Reeves - Bod for tea said...

What a lovely pretty village which reminds me of Callian that we recently visited in Provence. Great photos and fab post x

Alana said...

Oh, to live in a country where you had plentiful three day weekends. This is something we in the United States can only wish for.

Phoebe @ Lou Messugo said...

Is everything alright Betty? You haven't blogged for a while nor linked up to #AllAboutFrance which isn't like you. Hope you're just on holiday or something nice like that.