Le Puy

We've been making the rounds of the local bridge festivals, and the latest one was at Puy en Velay. JP had never been to the Puy before, so we went early and had a wander around.

 It's quite a vertical place, with several of these sharp rocks around the valley, where people have stuck a chapel or a statue of the virgin or a fortress.

 The medieval town center is nicely preserved, with plenty of flamboyant gothic restorations.

The cathedral is impressive and very odd. The stairs take you an entry in the center of the nave, not the back of it.

Another of the perched churches, St Micheals. I wanted to walk over there, but it was getting on to noon, and you know how JP gets concerned about being late for lunch. ;-) Yes, well, we don't want to eat in a rush, and we had to get to the tournament site early because we hadn't pre-registered. 

They had some unusual success this year, and with unregistered people arriving at the last minute, the referee had to actually turn a few away. Not enough space. There were in fact not enough bidding boxes to go around, and at two tables we had to share. Perhaps we'd have been better off giving up our seats to the latecomers and having a nice hike around town, because we played horribly. Not every hand was a catastrophy, but there weren't many teams to do worse. Just not our day for cards.