Good morning,



We are planning on spending 10 days or so total in the Dordogne and Bordeaux areas in early June. We will be driving ourselves. We like castles, chateaus, beautiful villages, gardens. So I am wondering of it makes sense to pick a base town in each of these areas and do day trips from those two towns? If that makes sense, can you suggest some base town ideas please. In other areas of France and Italy we have not stayed in the large cities as too hard to drive in. In the Loire Valley for example we based ourselves in Chinon and Amboise. By the way, we will take the train from CDG to the base town of whichever region we start in and pick up our rental car there. Thanks in advance!

I think you will find more interesting stuff to do & see if your 2 bases are near Sarlat and near St Cere/Carennac. Not Bordeaux. We've vacationed for 13 weeks in this region. Perhaps stay 6-7 days near Sarlat, & 4-3 near Carennac. Attached is my Dorodgne itineraray

We know both those areas well as we have a family home about an hour north of Bordeaux and go every year. We always tell friends who visit that you get a huge amount of "bang for your tourist buck in the Dordogne" and I think you could easily spend the full 10 days there with no problem without seeing much of the region. You say you could take "10 days or so"-if you feel you can take 12-14 I would try to see if you could see a bit of both the Dordogne and the Bordeaux area. I would take a train to Bordeaux straight from CDG so you can nap and then spend 1-2 nights in the city itself there before picking up the car-it is easy to pick it back at the train station. You won't need it in Bordeaux itself-they have a terrific tram system that covers most of the areas that tourists will be interested in staying in. If the coast interests you then when you pick up the car you could venture down to see the Pyla Dune area or part of the coast. Or of course many folks venture out to the surrounding wine areas near Bordeaux.

If the surrounding areas of Bordeaux aren't as much of a draw you could just head towards the Dordogne. I know many people try to avoid Sarlat-la-Canéda as a base in the summer because it gets too crowded, but in June we still find it okay for a base with a car. The city has around 10,000 population so it is big enough to have a great choice of restaurant that you can walk to which we prefer rather than always driving to other places if we stay further out in the countryside.

We have stayed at 3 properties there all very nice and different from each other. I used booking.com for all of them with free cancellation:

Hôtel Le Mas del Pechs this is a nice hotel that sits above Sarlat. It has free parking and has a pool and A/C (I would highly recommend hotels with A/C that time of year for both cool and noise that you will get from open windows). This was a perfect place for my husband to recover from jet lag over a few days before we starting exploring from there, calmer than the town center but still a 5 minute drive. We didn't find parking too difficult in Sarlat itself during June.

Right in a great location in Sarlat I also stayed at "Sarlat Côté Jardin", a B&B run by a lovely couple that has 3-4 little separate stand alone units around a garden. It is super well located to walk right into Sarlat. No pool there but A/C

And then a few years back we stayed at the Best Western Hôtel Le Renoir. It is also well located with a pool but no parking, although we didn't find it too hard to find street parking around there either.

If you don't want to be in Sarlat then you might look at some of the other smaller places like Domme or La Roque-Gageac or the Beynac-et-Cazenac area-they are all popular.

I also have to give a shout out to one of our favorite dining experiences in the area just outside of La Roque-Gageac called O Plaisir Des Sens. It is a lovely family run restaurant and on the Michelin Bib gourmand-so a bit more casual and less expensive than the starred restaurants. And they have created a wonderful cookbook of recipes from different chefs of the restaurants of the region. They are open for both lunch and dinner and have a wonderful garden dining area.

https://o-plaisirdessens.com/?utm_so...edium=referral

For the Dordogne, I agree that Sarlat would be a good base.

And I would strongly encourage you to get the Michelin Green Guides for these areas.

Thank you very much for the information. My wife and I are not foodies at all but would like to take a reasonably priced cooking class in Bordeaux or Dordogne. And even a "make your own chocolates" class would be fun as well. Anyone have any suggestions? Thank you.

As I mentioned to you on your LP post, chocolates aren't a normal thing in the Dordogne, other than chocolate-covered walnuts or the occasional attempt at a chocolate-chip cookie. Not a regional thing, at all. Le Chevrefeuille offers good cooking classes.

For cooking classes you might look at viator.com. They have a pretty good selection of offerings around Bordeaux. One pastry that is specifically associated to Bordeaux is the Canelé. Not my own personal favorite pastry but very Bordelais But they have some savory classes as well like duck or fish that could be fun

Another food site for eating not for cooking is a fun site called "eatwith" That site features dinners prepared by local people inviting visitors to come to their home to eat. I have wanted to go to one of their events but never seem to have the time in our schedule

https://www.viator.com/tours/Bordeau.../d468-141542P2

https://www.eatwith.com/search?q=Bordeaux%2C+France