We'll be staying in the Dordogne for 5 days next June and would like to base ourselves in a quiet, picturesque place from which we can travel around the area (we will have a car). We've chosen a beautiful looking B&B in Brantome: the owner seems delightful and the accommodation is highly recommended by other travellers.

Now that I've looked more closely at the Fodor guide to the Dordogne, however, I'm worried that we'll be too far away from many of the places we'll want to see, all of which seem at least 1.5 hours further south, near and including Sarlat.

Should we look for a base that is closer to Sarlat and abandon Brantome? Any advice gratefully accepted!

I think Brantome is too far north, the area within a 1 hour radius of Sarlat is the place to be in my opinion.

Depends on what you want to see and experience! I was very glad that I based in Sarlat.

Brantome is NOT what most peope want when going to the Dordogne, if they want to see the sights of the Périgord Noir. It's far too north., as mentioned, and not at all as pretty as the classic Périgord Noir. Go South.

Brantôme is one of those "maybe if we have extra time" places for a trip to the Dordogne, NOT a "let's stay there" place.

Change your reservations.

Totally agree with the others. Plus Brantome has always underwhelmed me (looks better from the 'outside' than from within). We've vacationed 10 weeks in the Dordogne & will be there near Sarlat for a week beginning next week.

Stu Dudley

going from "too far north" to perhaps "too far south" may or may not fit into your plans..but it worked well for us on our last visit. Maybe that was because we found a comfortable base near Rocamadour at the Domaine de la Rhue (which continued to make our personal Top Ten List for Europe).

(see pix-links below)

We used it as a base to visit far and wide through a goodly portion of Dordgone and Lot...including market day in Sarlat, the Lascaux cave, Cirq de Autoire (walking and driving), Carrenac, St Cirq de la Popie, Domme, Figeac, Cahors, Peche Merle, Gouffre de Padirac (just a few miles from the Domaine) and Conques (Lot). I might add that our very own "St Cirq" was most helpful with suggestions, and that was even before she took up permanent residence in the region.

Photos, including many of the places mentioned above:
For captions click on the pic and the small letter "i"icon.
https://goo.gl/photos/FnkrYsg4WDs78myT6

At that time we were traveling in early spring..excellent weather throughout. Light traffic in most places. Sarlat on Market Day was a "zoo"...no lines at Lascaux, Padirac or Peche Merle. (You can walk on a 45 minute trail from The Domanaine to Rocamadour's top entrance///see pic)

Happy travels! (Hi StCirq!) stu

www.karenbrown.com/hotel/domaine-de-la-rhue
This is a Karen Brown recommendation for The Domaine

The Domaine is a wonderful property, and while maybe a bit far south a good base for traversing the Périgord Noir if you're going in high season when the days are long and you don't mind a bit of driving.

Hi, Stu

We enjoyed a week at Les Granges Hautes, a charming B&B with two apartments in St.-Crépin a little north of Sarlat. It's a charming place with very nice hosts and it's very well-located for getting around the area.

http://www.les-granges-hautes.fr/en/accen.htm

If you're interested, I did a trip report -

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...m#last-comment

Thank you all so much for your incredibly generous and helpful replies and suggestions. Decision made! We'll move our base to the central area you've described - thanks so much in particular for the recommendations of lovely places to stay.

I wonder whether you have any suggestions for us about the next leg of our journey after the Dordogne. We were planning to drop down to the Midi Pyrenees and then drive across to the Languedoc area. Our thoughts were to find a village or rural stay in each area, and to stay for 5 days in each.

We really enjoyed our lodging in Sarlat. La Villa des Consuls ranks up there as one of our favorite hotels ever in Europe. Get a room with a balcony to enjoy some late afternoon vin rouge. Sarlat is the perfect base for the Dordogne in my opinion.

http://www.villaconsuls.fr/en/

By the way, here is our 2012 trip report to France. Chapters Three Thru Seven chronicle our time in the Dordogne (with lots of photos, too).

<B>http://travelswithmaitaitom.com/france-2012/</B>

Looks fabulous, maitaitom! We look forward to having a few Monty Python moments ourselves

After the Périgord, I would make my way SE toward Figeac, Albi, and Toulouse (loads of gorgeous villages in that neck of the woods to choose from), then south down toward the Med. If you let me know what route you are contemplating, I can get more specific. You could, for example, stay in or around Figeac, a wonderful town, for 5 days and explore all around there, then head east to Rodez and hit the highway that passes through the Millau viaduct and go south from there (stopping at some of the lovely caves and small towns along the way) and end up in Perpignan.

Thank you, StCirq. I've been looking at a beautiful stay - Les Fontaines in Martiel - which we thought could be a great base for the Albi area. If we stay there for 5 nights, we then have a final 5 nights to spend somewhere before we go back to Paris.

If we go south, we will need somewhere to return our car and take the TGV back to Paris.

We've stayed in a gite close to Martiel - good location. Email me at [email protected] and I'll send you my 35 page Languedoc itinerary with info about the Martiel area (I'm on vacation now within 2 hours of Martiel so I won't be able to send the itinerary till after Sept 26 ). Also ask for my Dordogne itinerary.

Stu Dudley

You could leave the car in Montpellier.