Waters and Wines of Aquitaine
Waters and Wines of Aquitaine. The Barge
Gascogne means tasty food, Armagnac, wine, little towns and villages, and musketeers.
Gascogne is French Arcadia with fields, gardens, farms with ducks and geese, vineyards, and some very old villages and churches.
Serignac-sur-Garonne is a typical tiny Gascogne village in the middle of endless gardens and fields.
The mooring is very small with a slot-machine for water and electricity. Two euros for four hours of usage. However, it didn’t work properly: it took money but didn’t give back anything. When we came back to the same place after four days of the travel, the mooring transformed from free to fee. Thee euros for the possibility to use brocked slot-machine for electricity.
Serignac is very small, fifteen minutes of a walk for the whole town, but very old, it has the church and many buildings of the XIII century.
There is Ferme Roquas in five kilometres from Serignac, it was mentioned as the main point of interest of Serignac in our guidebook. So, we walked to the Ferme.
We passed the fields of wheat, rye, and barley – the future baguettes, croissants and beer.
However, man shall not live by bread alone, but by a printed word.
First, we were surprised by the abundance of cottonwood fields.
Later we realized that it is paper grows.
Actually, the factory for cottonwood chips production locates just opposite the mooring, on the other side of the channel. From time to time tracks brought logs to the factory and took away chips.
The mooring on the left, on the opposite bank, is a place for camping.
Return to the Ferme. They specialize in the two gastronomical feature of Aquitane – prunes and ducks. Prunes are the topic of Aquitane. They grow prunes, dry them, and make plenty of different tasty things: soak them into Armagnac, cover them by chocolate, make jams, and just eat as it is. The whole huge shop of different prune products.
Prunes soaked in Armagnac is a Gascogne speciality. It is my favourite prune product. However, prunes covered with dark chocolate are also very nice.
Ducks are another speciality of Gascogne farmers. I so love them, and here they cook them in all forms and varieties: pates, terrines, smoked duck sausages, don’t mention just fresh meat. All part of duck are used – we had so taste braised duck hears on the night farm market in Vianna!
The farm also has some local cheese, local wine and vegetables from their garden. It was the season of tomatoes and small Gascogne melons. How tasty they were! Not only in Serignac but everywhere in Gascogne. We bought them in the local markets in every place we visited.
Gascogne melons with smoked duck were especially delicious.
So, we tasted wine, filled our backpack with tasty stuff, and went back to the barge along with old houses behind huge bushes of hydrangea.
After a light meal on the barge with degustation of our purchases from Ferme, we decided that we need some physical activity before dinner and went biking to Garonna in the hope of swimming. Unfortunately, we couldn’t reach Garonna because all roads to the river in this area are private, but we had a nice ride among the fields and gardens.
We rode near gardens of prunes, apples, pear, and even kiwis. Huge plantations of kiwi with French hares in them.
Most of the gardens were similar with young trees covered with plenty of fruits. All garden have root watering.
Finally, we found a very untypical pear garden with very old trees, mostly trunks with some branches. Every tree had very few fruits (compare with the usual one), and the garden had shower watering. I believe that it was perry (pear cider) garden.
We passed Bequin, the village even smaller than Serignac, but also very old.
And rode back to the barge for a supper.
How I said, some people do not travel on barges, they live on them. Near the mooring in Serignac, the barge-home is parked. It is very groomed, fresh-painted and very clean.
It even has a garden and a kayak.
To be continued….
