KJA:

Any recommendations regarding lodging?

Again, thanks to all, I value your input.

H

You can see my reviews on trip advisor under KJA3. To place my choices and remarks in context: I traveled solo and sought what I considered to be affordable accommodations with particular attention to location, somewhat less attention to comfort, and basically no attention to "extras." Please note that my trip to the Dordogne was in 2011, so anything I wrote about these places could be seriously out of date. My one really big lodging splurge of my 26-day trip through western France was in Domme, and I thought l"Esplanade well worthy of it!. Here are the places I stayed:

Sarlat: Hotel Montaigne
Domme: Hotel l'Esplanade
Rocamadour: Le Terminus des Pelerins
St-Cirq-Lapopia: Auberge du Sombral.

Hope that helps!

My wife and I stayed in Beynac and thoroughly enjoyed the breadth of the Dordogne. We had an excellent experience with Les Petit Versailles, a bed and breakfast run by a French couple. We would never again stay in a hotel if we can help it.

BTW, I enjoyed dinners at:

Sarlat -- Le Grand Bleu (outstanding!)
Sarlat - Rossigno (VERY good!)
Domme - L'Esplanade (excellent!)
Domme - Cabanoix & Chataigne (excellent!)
Rocamadour -- Jehan de Valon, Beau Site (quite good)
St-Cirq-Lapopia -- Le Goremet Quercynois (good, but the least satisfying, for me, of these 6)

I'm sure it depends on what you order. And again, things could well have changed since I was there!

kja, Domme and Sarlat are 10 minutes apart. I understand your basic reasoning for moving forward, but moving to someplace 10 minutes down the road does not make sense to me at all.

I visited Domme and Beynac as day trips from Sarlat - a nice nice town - a big town with lots of amenities, etc - Domme and Beynac during August days were completely overrun with tourists - the thing I remember most about Domme was the ice cream signs in front of shops - nice towns with intriguing histories and street layouts but I was glad to be based in a more real town like Sarlat.

If it's April the week before or after Easter it is a very crowded time in south of France - not sure about Dordogne but could well be - I'll let the real experts who live there and or travel there a lot be a better indicator of that.

@StCirq -- I wanted to stay at L'Esplanade, but couldn't afford 4 nights there.

Oh, I totally understand that, kja!

It's not crowded at all in the Dordogne around Easter. Many shops and restaurants close up between mid-October and the Tuesday after Easter, so things are really just starting to come to life again at that time. It's a wonderful time of year to be there, and it doesn't start to get crowded at all until the mid to end of June.

I and my wife will be spending a week in the Dordogne in April. I am basing myself in in Domme for the last three nights>>

lol - where's your wife going to be while you're in Domme?

Oh how I have missed Benny Hill.

Without reading every post in detail but scanning how the heck does Benny Hill figure in the Dordogne - or did he die here being eaten by the piranah famously seen in recent years in the Dordogne River?

I think you missed annhig's joke, Pal.

Or as Henny Youngman would say "Take my wife...please."

I see no problem stopping in Rocamadour for one night at the Domaine de la Rhue when driving from Geneva.I have stayed there twice and liked it very much.
I have also stayed at the Esplanade in Domme but would not stay there for a week. Evening strolls in Domme would get old after a couple of days. I prefer the larger town of Sarlat. We stayed at the La Villa des Consuls last year and I can recommend it, location, location, location. We had a room overlooking the Saturday market on the main street.

www.villaconsuls.fr

I think you missed annhig's joke, Pal.>

Well yes I guess, as usual a bit slow on the ole uptake, but I was talking about Huggy's remark - not thinking to relate it to Fraulein annhihg's!

Sorry Pal. It is difficult to be clever all of the time so that everyone understands. I appreciate annhig's comment. Sometime the responses here get a bit testy. Any lightheartedness,IMO, is always welcome. And I really hope my wife makes the decision to stay with me.

And I really hope my wife makes the decision to stay with me.<

said in a light-hearted vein I presume! and yes reading annhig's comment now make syour nice retort perfectly clear 0nward thru the Fog as they used to say on the Power Hitters sold at Oat Willies Department Store in Austin, TX!

I've been to the area twice, staying in Sarlat the first time and Carennac the second. On the second trip, my fellow travelers had not been to the Dordogne so we made several day trips. They quickly tired of the back and forth, and refused to go back again. So, it just depends on how much back tracking you are willing to do. I agree with the idea of two separate hotels, one in Domme and one in the Lot. Personally, I found the towns in the Lot to be more appealing, much less commercial. I could much more easily feel the medieval spirit in those places. And, yes, Loubressac is lovely, with gorgeous views. Aurore is the only.town that failed to charm. I loved d'Erygnac, by the way.

The delights of auto correct - that should have been Autoire.

Too late for the OP I realize but FWIW...I literally gasped when I opened the gate at Relais Ste Anne in Martel, and saw the grounds, chapel, school building/dining room and two lodging buildings. My meal of Limousin beef with a warm mushroom-infused cream amuse, remains a mouth-watering memory years later.

Full disclosure, I am a Plantagenet geek and chose Martel for its association with the death of Richard the Lion Heart's brother, "the young King," his father spurning as trickery his son's deathbed pleas for reconciliation. Their mother Eleanor of Aquitaine is my person heroine, and I might have loved the town a little even before I got there. I'd loved Sarlat but found the scale of Martel to be more personal and plausible. Known for its seven towers, my April visit found the town decked in lilacs, forsythia, apple blossoms and the first wisteria. My Southern California heart sang.

Before Martel, I based in Brive-le-Gaillard and, with no car, arranged lodging and tour-driving at Logis Penitent Blancs. Carennac was likewise a virtual flower show and a lovely riverside day visit, combined with a trip to the chateau where the Mona Lisa was hidden during WWII, and coffee/strawberries at Beaulieu-sur-Dorgone. A second day found us lunching in Collonges-la-Rouge, admiring Coco Channel's graphic inspiration in Aubazine, experiencing the pearlescent mists of Turenne and the stones of Uzerche. If you are a photographer, Girard will assure the best vantages or find a random 12th century church on a hillside. So many Ville Fleuri and Les Plus Beaux VIllages in this area, and at least in April, a chance to enjoy them in peace.

Hard to leave but my next adventure was the most fantastic place I've ever been in--a restored troglo gite along the Loire in Anjou, very near Saumur, in Dampierre. Ah, France!

Solo female traveler, 60 y.o.