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Condom / Castelnau-sur-l'Auvignon / Golfech
2009.12.14
Is that a burglar?
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Is that a burglar?
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Oh no - it's just an early Santa!
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Oh no - it's just an early Santa!
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Claude's favourite fruit shop - shame she wasn't with me to see it!
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Claude's favourite fruit shop - shame she wasn't with me to see it!
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you can see why its a favourite too - this is December!
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you can see why its a favourite too - this is December!
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Condom Cathedral
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Condom Cathedral
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I presume these wooden things are in case anything falls down!
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I presume these wooden things are in case anything falls down!
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and a lovely chocolate shop!
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and a lovely chocolate shop!
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Castelnau-sur-l'Auvignon = war memorial
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Castelnau-sur-l'Auvignon = war memorial
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what remains of the Bastide
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what remains of the Bastide
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the main street
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the main street
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on the road now - lovely open uncluttered road!
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on the road now - lovely open uncluttered road!
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nice trees
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nice trees
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great road - I had stopped for a pit stop!
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great road - I had stopped for a pit stop!
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and lovely countryside
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and lovely countryside
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and now this !
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and now this !
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closer
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closer
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and finally as close as I got - you can see the reactors in the distance.
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and finally as close as I got - you can see the reactors in the distance.
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I have been to and blogged about Condom many times now - so not much to add - except that I like it there!
One of the joys of being on your own is that if you see a sign for somewhere and it looks interesting you can just go off there! And so it was that I found the hamlet of Castelnau-sur-l'Auvignon which turned out to have a rather interesting history. (see below)
On next towards my final destination for the day - Valence d'Agen - it is a lovely part of the world this but it does have one big disadvantage: The Golfech Nuclear Power Plant. This is located between Agen (30 km downstream) and Toulouse (90 km upstream) on the Tarn River, from where it gets cooling water.
The station has two operating nuclear reactors that are both Pressurized water reactors and two cooling towers that get their water from the Tarn, but it only takes water to compensate for evaporation - doesn't put it back in. Still makes me nervous!
Castelnau-sur-l'Auvignon
During the Second World war the bastide of Castelnau was a Resistance centre, being the base of the 'Wheelwright' network of British Special Operations in the area and which was run by a man called George Starr. One of the team,Yvette Cormeau, sent a record-breaking 400 wireless messages back to England, and another member of the network, Anne-Marie Walters, one of their couriers and then aged just 20, later wrote a book, Moondrop over Gascony, relating her experiences.
After D-day the local Resistance, reinforced by Spanish Guerrilleros from over the border, came out into the open and harried the SS Das Reich Panzer division so much that they were forced to divert their attention away from Normandy and the beaches to deal with trouble nearer at hand.
Castelnau was attacked and totally destroyed by the German division but not without a furious battle with the Resistance and Spanish Guerrilleros.
Stone from the ruined castle was used to rebuild the village. Today it is hard to imagine what went on there - but it is a poignant reminder of dreadful times not all that long ago.
