The Linen Rooster

La Mairie – Town Hall

This week the dichotomous duo took the 20-minute trip to neighbouring Cogolin, an enchanting little place.

A cool house

There, courtesy of Phil and Lois from Dallas, Texas, they had their first experience of geocashing!

A geocache hiding place!

But, more to the point, they enjoyed the sights of the old town.

The old town

Cogolin is famous for the manufacture of pipes, the kind that (mainly) gentlemen smoke.
Sorry, no photograph of a pipe, please use your imagination.

The old town

And its name is interesting.
Legend has it that when St Torpes was decapitated in Italy, his body parts were put in a barge with a dog and a rooster (in French, un coq).
We are unsure as to the reasons for this, as it seems unlikely that he needed the company.

The cemetery with Grimaud behind

Anyway, they landed on the coast here, and St Tropez took its name from the poor chap.
The bird wandered off and was found a few miles away in ‘un champ de lin’, a field of linen.

The old town

It is unclear whether this was a flax field, or a place where woven linen was laid out to dry and bleach.

The old town

But, whatever, the Linen Rooster, the ‘coq au lin’, became Cogolin.
Cool, eh?

A bell