Mariarosa

Our trip to the Dordogne was fantastic! Thanks to all who posted trip reports, tips, and answered my questions (Stu Dudley, St Cirq, ekscrunchy, robjames, Carlux, annhig, ira, slass, among many others).

We flew in/out of Toulouse, which could not have been more convenient. Changing planes at CDG was no problem with the 1 hour 45 minute layover we had each way. We had to change 2E to 2F and vice-versa and opted to walk out of the secure area and re-go through Customs and Security, rather than battle with the huge crowds waiting for the navette.

We spend 1 night in Albi, 1 night in Rocamadour, 4 nights in Sarlat and our final night in Toulouse.

We ate, visited steep villages, ate, visited more steep villages, ate, climbed up to visit more villages, shopped, ate, visited castles, ate, and did I mention most villages required climbing? Really, the 5 flights of stairs up to the religious city in Rocamadour (from the main village) was nothing! My husband kept reminding me: "You chose the destination."

We had the pleasure of meeting another Fodorite from this board, "Leely" and her travel companion. Salut Leely! I hope the rest of your trip was good.

My big question was whether to do Font de Gaume or Lascaux II. We intended to do Lascaux II, but due to an inconvenient English tour time (only 11:30 AM), we opted to try to go to Font de Gaume *without* reservations. The wonderful thing about the low season is that we were able to go in 30 minutes after we arrived, without reservations, and it was free.

Being pregnant was a non-issue (except for the constant need to search for a bathroom). I had to content myself with just a sip from my husband's wine, but otherwise, I basically ate everything.

Anyways, thanks a million to everyone!
- Maria Rosa

robjame

Welcome home and glad you had a fabulous trip. Will you be telling us more about your trip (hopefully)?

susanna

More, more, I'll be going in September!

CRAZY4TRAVEL

I would also love to hear more...I am leaving in a little more than 5 weeks.
Any great restaurant recommendations would be appreciated.

ira

Glad you enjoyed your trip, M.

klondike

Where did you stay in Rocamadour and would you stay there again? We will be there in September and are stuck with Mont St. Michel-like delema...stay "in town" for the atmosphere or "out" across the way at Hospitalet area for the over all view (particularly night view).

Always interested in good restaurant and hotel recommendations. Thanks!

Mariarosa

Since Fodorites are such a food-loving bunch, I’ll post about our most pleasant restaurant experiences. Please keep in mind that many restaurants that we had been planning on visiting were closed for the season until Easter (Easter being late this year). And even those who seemed to be open, had more closings than what their regular posted schedules would have suggested. For example, all of these were closed at lunchtime: Jardin d’Epicure near St Cyprien, Le Relais de Cinq Chateaux in Vezac, L’esplanade in Domme, and in La Roque Gageac either Le Plume d'Oie or Belle Etoile, was closed at lunch (do not know if they were open for dinner). Le Presidial in Sarlat was closed for dinner as well (and possibly for lunch).

Despite the closings, I do have some recommendations ;-)

The best place we ate during our entire trip was Le Quatre Saisons in Sarlat. It is a stone’s throw from the Villa des Consuls. If you’re in the area, this is a DO NOT MISS. The food was excellent and very imaginative (not your typical Menu du Terroir), presentation was outstanding, service was excellent (but not stuffy!), and the atmosphere was great as well (the type of place you can actually talk during your meal). Décor was medieval meets Scandinavian modern (sounds bad, but it worked). I should have written down the menu items, but I’m not a detailed journal-writer on vacation. I do remember we started off with a complimentary pot of green veloute (maybe from spring peas?) and my husband had scallops for appetizer and ultra-tender-pink veal for his main dish, with the sauce on a corked test-tube on the side for him to pour on. I had the shrimp ravioli in lobster sauce (the sauce was delicious) and for my main dish, I had lamb with a corn sauce. The two-inch-thick cut came perched, with an ACTUAL FIRE made out of rosemary stalks underneath. The rosemary gave the meat an additional layer of smoked flavor. All the sauces were flavorful, but subtle enough that they did not overpower the food itself and quite inventive. Desserts were also sublime and quite sophisticated. My husband’s pear tart came with a sauce and an ice cream that used non-traditional spices (think cardamom and other Eastern spices). My molleaux au chocolat was the best I had in France (and I always ordered this). It also had a kick from something new that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

For typical menu du terroir, my thumbs up goes to Le Mirandol in Sarlat. Yes, it’s the typical choices, but you will be amazed at the price-quality ratio. Hubby’s escargot appetizer was delish, as was the fantastic beef tenderloin he had as his main course (I know some of you don’t think you can get good beef in France, but this was excellent). I went “light” for my appetizer (salad), but my honey duck breast was perfect (excellent cut as well, perfectly cooked).

We also had one dinner at Bistro de l’Octroi. Hubby liked it more than I did. It’s a brasserie, so all the main dishes came out with the same sides. Appetizers showed flashes of genius; I had a ‘gnocchi’ with vegetables in some red sauce that I’m guessing was made from red peppers that was one of the best things I ate all trip long. But my main dish, salmon, was uninspired. My husband had the fresh cod for his main dish, and that was much more interesting.

We ate lunch wherever we were and basically did Menu du Terroir type of things. One of the loveliest lunches we had was at Lou Cantou in Loubressac (one of the Logis de France). It’s a very homey place on a pretty spot. Service was nice and the food, while typical, was very nicely done. http://cayrousehotel.com If you find yourself around this area, this would make a nice, casual stop. Loubressac itself was such a cute and photogenic village. It’s a TMT (ten-minute-town), but still worth a stop for its cuteness factor.

Finally, if you’re ever in Albi, we had a great seafood dinner at La Temporalite (in rue de la Temporalite). Fantastically executed fish and seafood. My little calamari salad was perfect as well as my whole fish. However, the place was packed (13 tables at the end of our meal were occupied) and there was only 1 waiter for the entire place. You literally had to tackle the guy down to get any service. He performed as well as he could under the circumstances. My guess is that they’re usually no that busy on weekdays or someone else was supposed to come to work and did not show up.

I’ll post soon about lodging (Klondike - I’ll post about Rocamadour as well), and a little more about what we actually visited and experienced.

CRAZY4TRAVEL

Thank you for that great info Mariarosa. As it happens, we will be spending two nights in Loubressac at the Relais hotel so for sure we'll plan one of our evening meals at the Logis Lou Cantou. We were supposed to stay in Carennac and found out only a week ago that the hotel we reserved is closed for business.

We plan to visit Rocamadour, Gouffre de Padric, Chateau Castelnaud and some of the lovely towns in the area. Any suggestions for a lunch spot in Rocamadour would be appreciated.

kwren

If any of you are going to Rocamadour with kids (and maybe without kids too), I suggest adding on a visit to the Foret des Singes (Monkey Jungle) at the top of the town.

From its website:
Monkey Forest is more than 130 monkeys living in total freedom in 20 ha of forest and meadow.
Walking along the paths, you are transported into a different world through direct contact with the monkeys who don’t hesitate to come and take the popcorn, distributed at the entrance, from the palm of your hand.

One of the best parts for my son was when one jumped on my back, sending me screaming down the path! I can usually be counted on to provide endless entertainment...

cigalechanta

Maria, we visited friends near Poitiers in the Vienne and they took us to La Vallée des Singes in Romagne. We were given black canvas bags to put our handbags, cameras glasses or whatever you may carry. Sure enough, my husband had a tug of war with one chimp who tried to take his bottle of water.
There was a body of water that seperated us from the other shore where th gorillas were roaming or staring at us. I loved it!!!

mr_go

Oh, man...we passed by the Monkey Forest a couple of times, wondering if we were making a mistake by not going in. Looks like we did.

Mariarosa, I'm so glad you enjoyed your trip. It's a great area to visit, and was one of my top 5 favorite trips of all time.

And nice job with those restaurant reviews...you're making me hungry! Too bad you couldn't enjoy the local wines as much as you'd like, but you do have more important concerns right now. ;-)

kwren

I don't recall being given a bag for our belongings at this Monkey Forest (didn't know there were others!), but then again, we only had one daypack, and the monkeys were more interested in the treats we handed out.

Next to Monkey Forest was Rocher des Aigles (Eagle Rock), another good place for kids. Lots of birds of prey to look at and a good bird show. There were huge vultures set free to fly and we have picutres of my son and me with hawks on our heads. He loves birds so this place was a hit too.

Leely

Mariarosa,
Welcome home and thanks for your report. I returned yesterday afternoon. It was great fun meeting you and your husband and I'm glad the rest of your trip went well. We went back to Quatre Saisons and ordered almost exactly the same meals--never did make it to Bistro del'Octroi. Next time.

Tell your husband we thought of him while cruising the gabares.

Mariarosa

CRAZY - You will enjoy Loubresace very much. It's such a lovely village! Carennac is absolutely lovely too, but it's just a short ride away, it doesn't make much of a difference in which of these villages you spend the night. We enjoyed the tour of Castelnau-Bretonoux a lot. Although the guide didn't quite understand why I was surprised that the last owner, who restored and furnished the castle as we see it today, had a wife (he was a comedic actor with a flair for decorating ;-) ) Unfortunately, I don't have much of a recommendation for lunch in Rocamadour. We had dinner, but left in the morning, before lunch. We had dinner at our hotel's restaurant, the "Val Jean" restaurant of the Best Western. I had the cepes soup and a white fish (can;'t remember which one) steamed "en papillotte" with an anise sauce. The sauce was too subtleto make the white fish exciting. My husband had duck confit for appetizer and a main dish of roasted leg of lamb with white beans. His dish came with a delicious scalloped potato side dish, and the beans were nicely seasoned. The leg of lamb was a little overdone for my taste. Overall, it was fairly good, but it wasn't one of our best meals in the Lot-Dordogne.

For those who are planning trips with kids, we saw signs for all types of cool activities with them. Besides the monkey forest mentioned above, we saw signs for an "Insectorama," Troglodyte housings (other than roque st cristophe), and medieval life houses/life. I think if we would have brought our 2-year old, we would have found things to do with him (but we're glad to have left him at home with grandma to enjoy some adult time).

Leely - You did the right thing by returning to Quatre Saisons. I know you only had a few more days before heading to Paris, what else did you visit?

Leely

Maria,

I'm back at work and really resenting it because I'd much prefer to get cracking on my trip report, particularly because I was an A+ Fodorite this time and took numerous photos of all the hotels I stayed in.

We hit Cadouin and Monpazier one day and had an absolutely enormous lunch at La Bastide de Monpazier. Very good, a tiny bit stuffy but still nice. Went to Castelnau Bretenoux and loved it. The tour was in French but thankfully you had filled us in on the comic opera singer and his wife. Carennac, Rocamadour, Font de Gaume (also had the French tour--hadn't reserved), Les Eyzies, Roque Gageac, Domme, probably some other places. We did NOT want to get on that train to Paris.

The weather turned around, didn't it?

Mariarosa

OK, I finally sat down and wrote a little about lodging. Hopefully, this will help those of you planning the logistics of your next trip.

<b>Albi</b>
In Albi, we stayed at the Hostellerie Saint Antoine. We booked the cheapest room they had (69 euros). Room was small, typical basic room at a 3-star hotel, but the bathroom was nice and spacious (with a bathtub) and had some nice amenities (e.g., towel heater). The hotel also had secured parking for 6 euros per night, making Albi a very convenient overnight stop. The hotel is located a block away from the Place du Vigan and the lovely pedestrian streets.

The best part of the hotel was the buffet breakfast. It was pretty pricey at 15 euros per person, but oh my, what a spread! It had plenty of protein dishes, and not just your regular ham and bacon, but also smoked salmon, cured ham, and a variety of cheeses. There were fresh fruits, fresh fruit salad, and delicious candied figs and orange. There were some wholesome bread options (besides the usual white-flour baguettes). If you liked pastries they had a variety of nice ones. Also, yogurts (different types), cereal, juices, coffee, and quality teas. Overall, the Hostellerie’s lowest room category (they also have suites for more $$) did not wow us, but considering what we paid and the conveniences it offered, we thought it was a suitable place to rest.

<b>Rocamadour</b>
In Rocamadour, we stayed in town at the Best Western Beau Site. We paid 76 euros for our room. I requested a room with a new bathroom and we were placed in the annex in front, which as far as I know, is the area with the remodeled rooms. Our room was typical 3-stars, but it was “fresher” than our previous room at the Hostellerie Ste Antoine. Bathroom had a nice sink and bathtub. There was a safe as well. We had views of the countryside that the town of Rocamadour looks out into (same view that you get from the terrace at the Restaurant of the hotel - the Val Jean) from our French balcony.

The hotel offers free parking right in front (next to the restaurant/annex and across from the reception/main hotel), in the pedestrian area. However, the parking is quite interesting, as it is very, very small, so you are asked to park very close to the next car over (my husband had to exit through my side) and they are double or tripled-parked, so you may need to leave your key with the front desk. When my husband was asked to park as close to the side as possible, his only comment was “You want me to park in the tree, I’ll park in the tree” (and he did, the car was parked over the roots, the receptionist could only laugh). Also, driving into the pedestrian area may be a bit more challenging in the high season, when there are more people walking the streets. To get to the pedestrian area you go through a medieval stone door, which gave my husband the heve-jeeves (forgive him, he’s still scarred from getting the car stuck between medieval walls in Ubeda a la National Lampoon’s European Vacation).

For people with mobility issues, this would be an ideal place to stay as you are right in the main town, and the Best Western is right next door to the elevator that goes up to the Religious City. You would also have a couple of places to eat within a block. However, neither my husband nor I were impressed with the village of Rocamadour itself. It’s very similar to Assisi - one trinket shop or cheap creperie right after the other. The best part was seeing Rocamadour as you approach it from L’Hospitallet. However, Rocamadour was still a worthy visit for me. I’m not particularly religious, but we visited the Black Madonna chapel early the next morning, and we were the only ones in the chapel. The chapel exudes medieval Romanesque spiritual ambiance. At the risk of sounding simplistic, it just looks very old, (and intimate) and the back wall is the rock itself and has been that way for centuries. I expected a secret sect of monks to walk in at any minute.

<b>Sarlat</b>
In Sarlat, we stayed at the Villa des Consuls in the Mirabeau apartment (99 euros per night). Very spacious, absolutely spotless, bright, and even somewhat charming, with huge doors leading to the balcony, a non-working fireplace, and hardwood floors.

Besides the amenities you see listed on the website (free washer/dryer, in-room safe, towel-warmer, etc), one of the best conveniences of the Villa des Consuls was the direct-dial phone line. We were able to give the direct phone number of our apartment to Grandma before leaving. In addition, 1 minute and 40 seconds of talk time to the US from our room was only .22 euros, with no connection charge. I thought this was quite reasonable.

The only downside of the Villa des Consuls was arriving. Now, I had read on Tripadvisor that finding the hotel was a little hard. I figured, how hard can it really be? Well, we made the strategic mistake of arriving into Sarlat at 5:30 PM on a Friday afternoon. After visiting some picturesque and peaceful villages/castles that day (Castelnau-Bretonoux, Loubressac, Carennac, and Martel), it wasn’t exactly pleasurable to find ourselves in a traffic jam to get into Sarlat. Worse, I hadn’t bothered finding out where to park the car (ooops, even the most logistically-oriented, plan-for-everything-person screws up every once in a while). I had a map showing the one way streets in Sarlat, as well, as directions of how to approach the Villa des Consuls to drop the bags off. Well, the “dropping of the bags” involved going down a street called Cote de Toulouse. After looking around quite a bit, we found it. But there was no way my husband was going to pull an “Ubeda” can take this “street”. I mean, it had steps! (the wide type of steps, that I guess a car could technically go down, but still, there were steps). We parked the car at a pay lot at the bottom of the main thoroughfare (rue de Republique), walked to the Villa des Consuls and figured things out better. After we did this, everything was fine. I should mention that later that week, we saw cars in that cote de Toulouse “street”, so indeed it is not entirely pedestrian.

Even though I seriously questioned my decision to base ourselves in Sarlat when we arrived, we both immediately felt that this was a great decidion (at least in the low season). As I had correctly guessed, my husband had no desire to drive in the evening to/from dinner, after a Monbazillac aperitif and half a bottle of wine. And Sarlat does have some very good restaurants and fantastic medieval atmosphere in the evenings.

<b>Toulouse</b>
In Toulouse, we stayed at the Hotel Albert 1er. We booked their highest room category, at a rate of 98 euros. My confirmation indicated that the room would have a fireplace and king-size bed. When we arrived at around 3 PM, we were shown to a room that had a fairly large bed (queen?), but the room was fairly small, with no fireplace and worst of all for a first impression, the room had not yet been cleaned/made-up (she promptly explained that someone would come to clean the room). I refused the room, produced my confirmation, and I was told the room(s) with chimney was taken, but that they would show me a different 98 euro room. They showed us 2 other rooms. Both of them were much more spacious than the first, with bigger beds, better decoration, and more importantly, they were clean. We chose our favorite one - a very spacious room with two French balconies and high ceilings. The bathroom was a nice-size with a large, new tub and sink. So, why would they even try to give me a less desirable room? Probably just to see if I would take it. So consumer-beware, if you don’t like a room, it’s best to immediately refuse it.

The buffet breakfast at the Albert 1er (10 euros) was quite acceptable. They had eggs, cheese, ham, yogurt, pastries, oranges to squeeze your own juice (yes, there was a juicer), fruit salad, etc. The only thing that was awful was the watered-down coffee (the only watered-down coffee we experienced in our entire trip).

Mariarosa

Leely, I'm sure you're resenting work! DH is the type of person who always comes back from vacation and digs into work and doesn't seem to mind that the trip is over. Well, this time he was really bummed, and wondering when we would be able to go <i>anywhere</i> again.

We were awful Fodorites. Not only did we not take pictures of our hotel rooms and meals (well, except for the lamb on fire at Quatre Saisons!) we forgot to charge our battery before leaving and were only able to take about 200 pictures (which I guess it is still a lot for a week). We ran out of juice during our &quot;gay-bare&quot; trip ;-) I took pictures at St Cirq Lapopie with my phone. &lt;Sigh&gt;, I don't want to email all those pictures, so I guess I'll be buying a cable to connect the phone to the computer.

Glad to hear that you were able to hit some lovely spots south, west and east of Sarlat before heading to Paris.

annhig

hi, mariosa,

thanks for the report - great so far.

I feel i should apologise for the albert 1er problem in toulouse, as i suspect that it was my recommendation that led you there. perhaps us fodorites should come with a government health warning - p..ing us off may damage your wealth!
congrats for being so assertive, - not always something that is easy to do, especially when you're tired from travelling.

glad you both had such a good time,

regards, ann

Mariarosa

Hi Ann!

Don't feel bad for recommending the Albert 1er. In the end, everything worked out well. We liked the location, and we did like the room we changed into. Hell, we might even recommend it (with a CAVEAT spelled out!). The room was nicer than the rooms at many 3-star hotels we have stayed, and the breakfast was pretty good. I think the reason I was so &quot;assertive&quot; was because I was primed already. See, we did not ask the cab how much it would be from the train station to the hotel. It was 10 euros for a very short ride (about 2 minutes, it's definitely walking distance). I immediately looked at my papers from the Albert 1er (I had them in my purse), and sure enough, they say the taxi rate from the train station to the hotel is 5-10 euros. (I guess 5 is they think you're more local, 10 if you're a tourist). We obviously did not leave a tip. Anyways, I was already thinking, well, &quot;they are certainly far more Latin/southern european over here than in the northern areas of France&quot; (BTW, I'm Latin and have many ancestors from Andalucia, Catalunya, and southern Italy, so I don't feel bad about thinking things like that, LOL!). So when we were shown the first room, I was already in my no-nonsense mode.

susanna

Mariarosa:
I am enjoying your trip report as I am doing almost the same trip in September. I also am staying one night at the Albert 1 in Toulouse before we go on to the Canal du Midi. So I think that in the end you did like the hotel and where it was?

Annhig: I did book it after reading your review of it.

I am looking for a nice place to spend one night between 10 days in the Dordogne and 10days on a self drive barge, where we will meet up with our shipmates, what do you think?