>>You can visit the lovely town of Brantome and the chateau at Bourdeilles, but not much else without long drives.<<

Also, I don't think the drive to the "other sites", which goes through the suburbs of Perigueux (ugly), and about 1/2 way to les Eyzies is scenic at all. In the Bourdeilles area, there probably is enough to keep you busy for 2 1/2 days (Brantome, Bourdeilles Ch, Puyguilhem, Villers, St Jean de Cole, Thiviers, Jumilhac, Nontron (never visited these latter two), Perigueux, and Hautfort (although Hautfort is closer to Sarlat - a better area to stay in).

However, most of the sites I mentioned are not as interesting as the ones around Sarlat that have been mentioned on this board (Lascaux, Sarlat, Beynac, Roque Gageac, castles, Rivers, museums, etc).

If you only have 5 days, there is enough to see in the Sarlat area to keep you busy the entire time, without even going to Brantome at all.

Stu Dudley

We have a friend who has a farm house there.

Hi mrk,

>We have a friend who has a farm house there.<

An excellent reason.

It's not as if you are completely out in left field.

Go to www.mappy.com.

It will give you driving distances and times to places of interest.

For example, you are an hour from Montignac, 2 hr from Collenges-le-Rouge.

((I))

I just came back from France yesterday. We spent three nights in the Dordogne area and visited Font de Gaume and Pech Merle. I had made reservations about a month in advance for both.

No English tours at Pech Merle; they hand out an English commentary that you take with you. But there were groups leaving every fifteen minutes or so. We were running late for our reservation so I called and asked whether we could come later. No problem. They said they allow seven hundred visitors per day in groups of 25, far more than Font de Gaume, where I believe they said they allow sixty visitors per day in groups of twelve.

At Font de Gaume I heard some people inquire when the next tickets were available, and they were told one month.

If you are really staying in Bourdeilles, you might want to have one meal at the Auberge de la Truffe in Sorge. Good food, and the room is air-conditioned.

Hi,
We are still in France (Paris) and just returned from the Dordogne region. We stayed at the L'Esplanade in Domme for six nights last week. The hotel was very nice, the food was great and the views were fantastic. Traffic was not a problem for us. The town of Domme was crowded, but most visitors parked down the hill. We did not have any difficultly entering the town or finding a parking space close to our hotel. Our only difficulty was on market day (Thursday). We had a hard time finding a "free" parking space, so we went to the public parking area near our hotel and paid for one. Domme is definitely worth a trip if not a “stay”.

We were never at a loss for what to do in this area. While there we saw the caves, toured lovely towns, canoed, and ate, and ate, and ate. All of our dinners were at the L’Esplanade. Enjoy the Dordogne. So far, it has been our favorite area in France, but we just arrived in Paris...?

Walkteach

I loved the village of Bourdeilles! I agree with the others that it would be rather a trek to get to the popular sites further south. However, with a farmhouse to stay at, worth it, and there is plenty to see in the north, too. I stayed at the Hostellerie des Griffons in Bourdeilles, right next to the medieval bridge, and I would highly recommend their restaurant to you... great!

Maybe I should clarify what I have just said. I'm not sure if it would be "worth it" to drive long distances everyday to see alot of the sights, but "worth it" to stay in Bourdeilles and see things in that area. I had 2 weeks in the region, so was able to stay in several locations.

StCirq: I'm just posting here to get your attention. I tried to reply to the last e-mail, but got one of those MailerDaemon bounce responses. Same thing happened when I re-tried. I thought you might want to know before Monday that there must be a problem with your e-mail, though it seemed fine an hour ago.

(Sorry to hijack this thread)

walkerteach48: I just read your post about the Dordogne region and I would love to find out more about your trip! (I know you're still enjoying the latter part of it in Paris right now)

I am considering the same areas that you have traveled to (Normandy, Loire Valley and Dordogne) and would love your input on what you enjoyed and what you would not recommend.

By the way, we also plan on staying at L'Esplanade while we're in Dordogne, so I'm glad to hear that you gave it a good review.

Enjoy the rest of your trip.. and I hope to hear from you soon!