Labastide d’Armagnac – 30 September 2021

We are staying two nights at La Villa de Remparts. Our host there, Bertrand Garry Folzant makes beautiful kimonos.

It was really nice not to have to pack up and move on this morning. At breakfast our host recommended several places in the area that we might want to visit. We chose two and they turned ou to be fantastic.

Our first stop was the ruins of the Gallo-Roman villa of Séviac. The ruins of the Villa owned by a wealthy Roman were found in 1860 during the building of a farm. The site has been excavated and extensive mosaic floors have been discovered.

While we were at the site the farmer in the field next door was harvesting his grapes. we got a close up view of the grape harvester at work.

From Séviac we drove to the Abbey of Flaran. On the way we stopped for a picnic lunch next to a village church.

Flaran is a Cistercian Abbey initially built in the twelve century. In addition to touring the abbey we got to visit the art collection housed in what was the monk’s dormitory. The collection included a couple of works by Monet and one by Cezanne among others but the highlight for us was the collection of works by a painter I was not familiar with, Ken Paine. There were at least 50 portraits done by him. They were powerful and intense. I very much enjoyed seeing them.

For dinner we drove about three miles from where we were staying in Labastide-d’Armagnac to the next village, Saint Justin. We had an excellent dinner at a restaurant called Le Cadet de Gascogne.