How to get lost in rural France, or a Paris, Burgundy, Provence, and the Perigord Trip Report.
Dec 7th, 2006, 07:31 AM
#101
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I actually managed to get a picture of Mr. Mullet - I'll try to get it online tonight as it really was spectacular (business up front, party in the back).
I was surprised and somewhat disappointed by the way I felt about Domme - we'd heard so much about it and a lot of people had recommended it, but I just didn't feel comfortable there. Oddly enough, a few days later we met some very nice people from the Yorkshire Dales in Sarlat who had exactly the same opinion.
I was surprised and somewhat disappointed by the way I felt about Domme - we'd heard so much about it and a lot of people had recommended it, but I just didn't feel comfortable there. Oddly enough, a few days later we met some very nice people from the Yorkshire Dales in Sarlat who had exactly the same opinion.
Dec 9th, 2006, 12:23 PM
#103
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Day 16:
Monday, October 02, 2006:
Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
It seemed like a good idea, after the previous day’s visit to Castelnaud, to visit its historic enemy Beynac. After another tasty breakfast, we hit the road and headed back to the same area we’d be in the previous day (around La Roque Gageac). Beynac was, for most of the hundred year’s war, the enemy of Castelnaud. If one was held by the French, the other was held by the English. The fact that they’re within sight of each other above the Dordogne river probably didn’t help matters all that much.
Beynac is significantly different than Castelnaud, despite how close to each other they are. Beynac has been privately owned for years and has been restored to be as close to what it originally would have been like as possible, unlike Castelnaud, which has been turned into a medieval war museum. Some of the rooms have been converted back into bedrooms, the kitchens were decorated as if they were working kitchens, and there were swords and armour all over the place.
We took a tour, which turned out to be a good idea. As Beynac has been left in its natural state, there aren’t any explanatory plaques around, so we would’ve been hard-pressed to figure out what much of anything was. Our tour guide wasn’t actually an employee – none of the guides are – they’re all volunteers who just really love the place. Despite the tour being all in French, we understood pretty much everything, which was a nice surprise. He told us that there are actually only four employees at Beynac – the owner, who actually runs the ticket booth, a groundsman, and some cleaners. That’s it. Most of the money you pay to get in goes directly to the restoration of the castle itself. Maybe it was because of the excellent tour, or maybe because it looked more like a castle and less like a museum inside, but we both liked Beynac more than Castelnaud.
After seeing as much of the castle as we could, we decided that we were really hungry. The town down below Beynac is really small, but we managed to find a single little restaurant that seemed to be open for lunch. We sat down at one of the tables on the patio and waited for the waitress to come to take our order, or at least give us a menu. I eventually asked for one, as it seemed that she wasn’t going to be taking the initiative, and this evidently offended her, as she actually threw one at me. We took this as a sign, and ducked out as soon as her back was turned.
We got back into the car and started our search for a likely lunch location. We ended up driving a fair way until we hit the somewhat bizarre little town of St. Cyprien. Okay – it wasn’t actually bizarre, just really small. We found a little restaurant on the main street through town, and other than some spandex-clad cyclist who came in, we were very obviously the only tourists around.
After lunch, we hit the road again and continued our driving tour, exploring little towns such as La Bugue (which we went to for the name) and St. Cirq (which was *really* small). Mainly, we just enjoyed the scenery, driving through forests, across fields, up and down valleys throughout the area. The Périgord is really beautiful and the more we saw, the more we wanted to stay.
At one point on our tour, we came across a weird old house/fort that had been built into the side of a cliff that hadn’t been in any of our books or on any of the brochures we’d picked up. We pulled off the highway and bought our tickets to La Maison Forte de Reignac. It had only been open for a year and wasn’t absolutely complete yet, which is why it wasn’t in any of the books yet. We were the only one there and explored the rooms by ourselves.
It was interesting, but slightly odd – the rooms were chock-full of period decorations, but the isolation and silence inside made it slightly creepy. It was built on the site of a troglodyte settlement and bits of that can still be seen up at the top. I don’t know that I would go out of my way to visit Reignac, but if you happen to be driving past, it’s worth a stop.
We were pretty much sight-see’d out by this point and decided to head back to the hotel and spend the afternoon lounging by the pool. The sun was out and it was fairly warm. We opened a bottle of wine and enjoyed a few hours of sipping and reading, taking the opportunity to recharge our batteries.
Having been happy with the previous two nights’ dinners, on the recommendations of the hotel, we decided to for a third. They’d suggested a place a bit farther north, near the town of Souillac, called La Meynardie. We’d been warned that the food was excellent, but that it was a bit of a mission to find, especially in the dark. This wasn’t an exaggeration. We were good until we saw the sign guiding us off the main road onto a little side-road. We drove down this for a while, winding back and forth through some serious countryside (including driving through two separate forests).
Eventually we found it and it turned out to be worth the drive. Dinner started with two amuse bouches – the first a plate with some sort of cheese in pastry, a spread of foie gras on toast, and the leg of some sort of very small creature. There was much amusement when I asked the waiter if it was a frog’s leg, as it looked like it was about the right size and I’d never seen one before. He laughed and said that it wasn’t, in fact it was a little bird (I never did figure out what kind). We saw him a few minutes later talking to one of the other waitresses, and they booth looked over at us and laughed again. How was I to know?
Dinner was excellent – we had foie gras, I had a massive steak, Jamie scallops, a cheese plate, and a fantastic dessert – all this, plus a half-bottle of really good Pecharment wine, all for only €95 for both of us! I love France.
Monday, October 02, 2006:
Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
It seemed like a good idea, after the previous day’s visit to Castelnaud, to visit its historic enemy Beynac. After another tasty breakfast, we hit the road and headed back to the same area we’d be in the previous day (around La Roque Gageac). Beynac was, for most of the hundred year’s war, the enemy of Castelnaud. If one was held by the French, the other was held by the English. The fact that they’re within sight of each other above the Dordogne river probably didn’t help matters all that much.
Beynac is significantly different than Castelnaud, despite how close to each other they are. Beynac has been privately owned for years and has been restored to be as close to what it originally would have been like as possible, unlike Castelnaud, which has been turned into a medieval war museum. Some of the rooms have been converted back into bedrooms, the kitchens were decorated as if they were working kitchens, and there were swords and armour all over the place.
We took a tour, which turned out to be a good idea. As Beynac has been left in its natural state, there aren’t any explanatory plaques around, so we would’ve been hard-pressed to figure out what much of anything was. Our tour guide wasn’t actually an employee – none of the guides are – they’re all volunteers who just really love the place. Despite the tour being all in French, we understood pretty much everything, which was a nice surprise. He told us that there are actually only four employees at Beynac – the owner, who actually runs the ticket booth, a groundsman, and some cleaners. That’s it. Most of the money you pay to get in goes directly to the restoration of the castle itself. Maybe it was because of the excellent tour, or maybe because it looked more like a castle and less like a museum inside, but we both liked Beynac more than Castelnaud.
After seeing as much of the castle as we could, we decided that we were really hungry. The town down below Beynac is really small, but we managed to find a single little restaurant that seemed to be open for lunch. We sat down at one of the tables on the patio and waited for the waitress to come to take our order, or at least give us a menu. I eventually asked for one, as it seemed that she wasn’t going to be taking the initiative, and this evidently offended her, as she actually threw one at me. We took this as a sign, and ducked out as soon as her back was turned.
We got back into the car and started our search for a likely lunch location. We ended up driving a fair way until we hit the somewhat bizarre little town of St. Cyprien. Okay – it wasn’t actually bizarre, just really small. We found a little restaurant on the main street through town, and other than some spandex-clad cyclist who came in, we were very obviously the only tourists around.
After lunch, we hit the road again and continued our driving tour, exploring little towns such as La Bugue (which we went to for the name) and St. Cirq (which was *really* small). Mainly, we just enjoyed the scenery, driving through forests, across fields, up and down valleys throughout the area. The Périgord is really beautiful and the more we saw, the more we wanted to stay.
At one point on our tour, we came across a weird old house/fort that had been built into the side of a cliff that hadn’t been in any of our books or on any of the brochures we’d picked up. We pulled off the highway and bought our tickets to La Maison Forte de Reignac. It had only been open for a year and wasn’t absolutely complete yet, which is why it wasn’t in any of the books yet. We were the only one there and explored the rooms by ourselves.
It was interesting, but slightly odd – the rooms were chock-full of period decorations, but the isolation and silence inside made it slightly creepy. It was built on the site of a troglodyte settlement and bits of that can still be seen up at the top. I don’t know that I would go out of my way to visit Reignac, but if you happen to be driving past, it’s worth a stop.
We were pretty much sight-see’d out by this point and decided to head back to the hotel and spend the afternoon lounging by the pool. The sun was out and it was fairly warm. We opened a bottle of wine and enjoyed a few hours of sipping and reading, taking the opportunity to recharge our batteries.
Having been happy with the previous two nights’ dinners, on the recommendations of the hotel, we decided to for a third. They’d suggested a place a bit farther north, near the town of Souillac, called La Meynardie. We’d been warned that the food was excellent, but that it was a bit of a mission to find, especially in the dark. This wasn’t an exaggeration. We were good until we saw the sign guiding us off the main road onto a little side-road. We drove down this for a while, winding back and forth through some serious countryside (including driving through two separate forests).
Eventually we found it and it turned out to be worth the drive. Dinner started with two amuse bouches – the first a plate with some sort of cheese in pastry, a spread of foie gras on toast, and the leg of some sort of very small creature. There was much amusement when I asked the waiter if it was a frog’s leg, as it looked like it was about the right size and I’d never seen one before. He laughed and said that it wasn’t, in fact it was a little bird (I never did figure out what kind). We saw him a few minutes later talking to one of the other waitresses, and they booth looked over at us and laughed again. How was I to know?
Dinner was excellent – we had foie gras, I had a massive steak, Jamie scallops, a cheese plate, and a fantastic dessert – all this, plus a half-bottle of really good Pecharment wine, all for only €95 for both of us! I love France.
Dec 11th, 2006, 03:33 PM
#104
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Not to be Outdone by the Mistral…
Day 18: Tuesday, October 03, 2006
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
We may have offended the gods of Karma by talking too much about how strong the Mistral was. I was rudely woken before dawn by the sound of pouring rain and howling winds – a storm of epic proportions had rolled in and was pounding the Périgord. I wasn’t able to get back to sleep, and finally got out of bed feeling like I had gravel in my eyes and cotton packed in my head.
After breakfast, we carefully made our way out to Floriane, dodging flying walnuts along the way (the hotel is surrounded by walnut trees, and this was a STRONG wind – deadly edible missiles were flying everywhere). We drove an hour or so south again, this time to the old medieval town of Rocamadour, perched on and built into its cliff face.
The end drive to Rocamadour from Sarlat isn’t particularly well marked. We arrived at a T-intersection with, as far as we could see, no signs to indicate right or left to get to the town (we didn’t realize we were already there). We chose right and pulled into a parking lot to see if we could find a map or street sign somewhere. As soon as we got out of the car, we realized that signs were unnecessary – we were actually parked in the scenic viewpoint parking lot overlooking the old town. I can’t be sure, but I suspect that the town was designed specifically to look that incredible from that parking lot – it is just too incredible to be by chance.
The top bit of Rocamadour is still used as a church, with more church bits and town spilling down the cliff. We turned around and headed to the top of the town, finding a small but mostly empty parking lot, which was also free. We should’ve realized that this meant we were probably in the wrong spot, but we got out of the car for a bit of a wander. We quickly discovered that the top bit, which is still the church, is off-limits to tourist – I think it’s where the residents of the church below live, or a monastery. We walked dejectedly back to the car, but on the way noticed a little sign for an elevator down to the lower parts of the town.
It turned out not to be an elevator at all, but a somewhat rickety-looking funicular. We paid our nominal fee (parking is never free) and boarded the sideways express down to the village. First stop on the tour was the church area. There were services going on and lots of people about – evidently Rocamadour is somewhat popular on the pilgrimage routes even now. We even managed to accidentally wander into one of the chapels as they were distributing the sacrament. We found a stairway that led further down to the non-church bit of the town and looked for a place to have lunch.
There isn’t really a lot going on in Rocamadour, especially as you near the off-season. We managed to find a little café that served pizza, so we stopped in for lunch. The rain had let up by this point, but it was still windy and fairly cold, so we were glad to sit inside to warm up (and use the bathrooms).
After lunch we took a quick walk around the town but didn’t find all that much to hold our interest – we’re not big on shops selling mass-produced and slightly tasteless catholic tourist knick-knacks, and thus didn’t even bother going in to most of the stores. We found the funicular again and paid yet another nominal fee to ride back to the top. We could’ve walked, but it was a very steep hill and we were feeling very lazy.
Back in the car, we headed for stop number two for the day – the grotto at Lacave, just down the road from Rocamadour. We cleverly managed to time our arrival at Lacave for 2:00pm, during everyone’s lunch (by everyone, I mean everyone in France, between noon and 2:30pm).
We were forced to have a coffee in the little café across the street while we waited – Jamie read brochures and I entertained myself by swatting flies and watching the wind do unnatural things to the local trees.
Eventually, at the very moment the minute hand of the clock on the wall ticked to 2:30, the entire staff of the Grotto at Lacave arrived in one large passenger van. We filed into the waiting room with the group of other tourists that had turned up by this point, bought our tickets, and sat down to wait until 2:45, when our tour was scheduled to begin.
Oddly, it felt exactly like we were waiting for a train as we sat in that waiting room. This turned out to be a very accurate feeling, as there’s a slightly rusty little train that takes you deep into the mountain next to Lacave to the Grotto. We piled onboard at exactly 2:45 and began our journey into the heart of the mountain.
The caves at Lacave certainly put the little holes in Domme to shame – they’re bigger, better lit, more spectacular, and the tour is definitely more interesting (although, again, it was in French only. Our geological vocabulary didn’t get any better, but the tour guide did make an effort to speak slowly, and explained things in English after the French when he could). There were signs everywhere explaining that photography was permitted but flashes weren’t. Not only this, the guide mentioned it several times – I managed to get a few decent shots without my flash, however the somewhat annoying people in our tour group either didn’t think the big “NO FLASH” signs were intended for them, or just didn’t care. It was at this point of our trip that I realized that I detest tourists. A little self-loathing never hurt anyone. The guy that really got me annoyed was the older gentleman who had a nicer camera than me (and that’s saying something), yet couldn’t figure out how to change the settings to take a picture without the flash. The way I look at it, if you’re going to spend that kind of money, you should at least learn how to use the damn thing. It’d be like buying a Ferrari, but not ever working out how to get it past 2nd gear.
After Lacave, we headed back to the hotel, where we were going to have dinner that evening. The hotel is very definitely a family-run affair, and two or three nights a week, you have the option of having your dinner made for you. We got back a bit early, grabbed our books and a bottle of wine, and settled ourselves into the chairs in front of the fireplace in the big common room. We learned, talking to someone at the hotel, that we were experiencing the worst storm in recent history in the area – there had been gusts of up to 130km/hr in our area, and up to 170km/hr on the coast. There were trees down all over the place, and driving had been a bit of a challenge trying to avoid all the branches and other debris on the road.
There isn’t much that is finer than sitting next to a giant fireplace, in France, with a good book, a bottle of wine, and your spouse beside you while a massive storm rages outside. We sat and read and relaxed for quite a while, until the other guests of the hotel started arriving for dinner. After chatting with them for a few minutes, dinner was served.
Somewhat surprisingly, this being the Périgord, the first course of the meal was Foie Gras, which is always a good thing. We then moved on to (again, big shocker) a very tasty duck confit served on gésier risotto (we were okay with the concept of eating gizzards at this point – we’d survived the first batch and had discovered, much to our delight, that they’re actually pretty tasty). Immediately after the main course, and just as they were about to begin preparing our dessert (chocolate mouse and ice cream), we lost power. It came back on briefly, then went out again. Candles came out along with Plan B for dessert – they quickly whipped up a nice Chantilly and hauled out the homemade grappa – useful either as a strong beverage or an engine degreaser, depending on the circumstances.
The power didn’t come back on and we ended the evening in the dark, with only candles to light our room. We fell asleep to the sound of the wind howling outside, hopeful that the power would be back by the time we woke up (if I don’t get my morning coffee, things are not good).
Day 18: Tuesday, October 03, 2006
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
We may have offended the gods of Karma by talking too much about how strong the Mistral was. I was rudely woken before dawn by the sound of pouring rain and howling winds – a storm of epic proportions had rolled in and was pounding the Périgord. I wasn’t able to get back to sleep, and finally got out of bed feeling like I had gravel in my eyes and cotton packed in my head.
After breakfast, we carefully made our way out to Floriane, dodging flying walnuts along the way (the hotel is surrounded by walnut trees, and this was a STRONG wind – deadly edible missiles were flying everywhere). We drove an hour or so south again, this time to the old medieval town of Rocamadour, perched on and built into its cliff face.
The end drive to Rocamadour from Sarlat isn’t particularly well marked. We arrived at a T-intersection with, as far as we could see, no signs to indicate right or left to get to the town (we didn’t realize we were already there). We chose right and pulled into a parking lot to see if we could find a map or street sign somewhere. As soon as we got out of the car, we realized that signs were unnecessary – we were actually parked in the scenic viewpoint parking lot overlooking the old town. I can’t be sure, but I suspect that the town was designed specifically to look that incredible from that parking lot – it is just too incredible to be by chance.
The top bit of Rocamadour is still used as a church, with more church bits and town spilling down the cliff. We turned around and headed to the top of the town, finding a small but mostly empty parking lot, which was also free. We should’ve realized that this meant we were probably in the wrong spot, but we got out of the car for a bit of a wander. We quickly discovered that the top bit, which is still the church, is off-limits to tourist – I think it’s where the residents of the church below live, or a monastery. We walked dejectedly back to the car, but on the way noticed a little sign for an elevator down to the lower parts of the town.
It turned out not to be an elevator at all, but a somewhat rickety-looking funicular. We paid our nominal fee (parking is never free) and boarded the sideways express down to the village. First stop on the tour was the church area. There were services going on and lots of people about – evidently Rocamadour is somewhat popular on the pilgrimage routes even now. We even managed to accidentally wander into one of the chapels as they were distributing the sacrament. We found a stairway that led further down to the non-church bit of the town and looked for a place to have lunch.
There isn’t really a lot going on in Rocamadour, especially as you near the off-season. We managed to find a little café that served pizza, so we stopped in for lunch. The rain had let up by this point, but it was still windy and fairly cold, so we were glad to sit inside to warm up (and use the bathrooms).
After lunch we took a quick walk around the town but didn’t find all that much to hold our interest – we’re not big on shops selling mass-produced and slightly tasteless catholic tourist knick-knacks, and thus didn’t even bother going in to most of the stores. We found the funicular again and paid yet another nominal fee to ride back to the top. We could’ve walked, but it was a very steep hill and we were feeling very lazy.
Back in the car, we headed for stop number two for the day – the grotto at Lacave, just down the road from Rocamadour. We cleverly managed to time our arrival at Lacave for 2:00pm, during everyone’s lunch (by everyone, I mean everyone in France, between noon and 2:30pm).
We were forced to have a coffee in the little café across the street while we waited – Jamie read brochures and I entertained myself by swatting flies and watching the wind do unnatural things to the local trees.
Eventually, at the very moment the minute hand of the clock on the wall ticked to 2:30, the entire staff of the Grotto at Lacave arrived in one large passenger van. We filed into the waiting room with the group of other tourists that had turned up by this point, bought our tickets, and sat down to wait until 2:45, when our tour was scheduled to begin.
Oddly, it felt exactly like we were waiting for a train as we sat in that waiting room. This turned out to be a very accurate feeling, as there’s a slightly rusty little train that takes you deep into the mountain next to Lacave to the Grotto. We piled onboard at exactly 2:45 and began our journey into the heart of the mountain.
The caves at Lacave certainly put the little holes in Domme to shame – they’re bigger, better lit, more spectacular, and the tour is definitely more interesting (although, again, it was in French only. Our geological vocabulary didn’t get any better, but the tour guide did make an effort to speak slowly, and explained things in English after the French when he could). There were signs everywhere explaining that photography was permitted but flashes weren’t. Not only this, the guide mentioned it several times – I managed to get a few decent shots without my flash, however the somewhat annoying people in our tour group either didn’t think the big “NO FLASH” signs were intended for them, or just didn’t care. It was at this point of our trip that I realized that I detest tourists. A little self-loathing never hurt anyone. The guy that really got me annoyed was the older gentleman who had a nicer camera than me (and that’s saying something), yet couldn’t figure out how to change the settings to take a picture without the flash. The way I look at it, if you’re going to spend that kind of money, you should at least learn how to use the damn thing. It’d be like buying a Ferrari, but not ever working out how to get it past 2nd gear.
After Lacave, we headed back to the hotel, where we were going to have dinner that evening. The hotel is very definitely a family-run affair, and two or three nights a week, you have the option of having your dinner made for you. We got back a bit early, grabbed our books and a bottle of wine, and settled ourselves into the chairs in front of the fireplace in the big common room. We learned, talking to someone at the hotel, that we were experiencing the worst storm in recent history in the area – there had been gusts of up to 130km/hr in our area, and up to 170km/hr on the coast. There were trees down all over the place, and driving had been a bit of a challenge trying to avoid all the branches and other debris on the road.
There isn’t much that is finer than sitting next to a giant fireplace, in France, with a good book, a bottle of wine, and your spouse beside you while a massive storm rages outside. We sat and read and relaxed for quite a while, until the other guests of the hotel started arriving for dinner. After chatting with them for a few minutes, dinner was served.
Somewhat surprisingly, this being the Périgord, the first course of the meal was Foie Gras, which is always a good thing. We then moved on to (again, big shocker) a very tasty duck confit served on gésier risotto (we were okay with the concept of eating gizzards at this point – we’d survived the first batch and had discovered, much to our delight, that they’re actually pretty tasty). Immediately after the main course, and just as they were about to begin preparing our dessert (chocolate mouse and ice cream), we lost power. It came back on briefly, then went out again. Candles came out along with Plan B for dessert – they quickly whipped up a nice Chantilly and hauled out the homemade grappa – useful either as a strong beverage or an engine degreaser, depending on the circumstances.
The power didn’t come back on and we ended the evening in the dark, with only candles to light our room. We fell asleep to the sound of the wind howling outside, hopeful that the power would be back by the time we woke up (if I don’t get my morning coffee, things are not good).
Dec 11th, 2006, 07:01 PM
#105
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 903
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Scott, we went to many of ther same places as you when we were in the Dordogne in June so your report is bringing back lovely memories. My husband wasn't impressed with gizzards but we both enjoyed Lacave. I took photos but never noticed signs forbidding flashes. Like you we combined it with our visit to Rocamadour. Interesting how so many of the caves were discovered by young boys and dogs, isn't it?
Dec 12th, 2006, 10:08 AM
#106
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Moolyn - we had trouble with the gizzards until we really thought about the foie gras we'd been eating...intellectually both are on about the same level in terms of grossness, and we really like foie gras...
There was a sign about the flashes at the beginning, and our tour guide did his best to get people to stop using them - it was like having the paparazzi in there - they just wouldn't stop...
There was a sign about the flashes at the beginning, and our tour guide did his best to get people to stop using them - it was like having the paparazzi in there - they just wouldn't stop...
Dec 12th, 2006, 01:11 PM
#107
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 4,412
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Scott: I've enjoyed your travelogue and photos immensely as they bring back fond memories of our recent stay in the Dordogne and long ago trips through Burgundy and Provence.
You mentioned a site overlooking Rocamadour that appeared off-limit to tourists. I believe that it used to be a monastery, but is now used by the local diocese as a conference and retreat centre. At any rate when we were there, we noticed a sign on the gate with a menu, so as it was lunch time, we walked in and asked about it and were led through halls to a large dining hall. We asked if it would be possible to sit outside, so they set a table on the terrace with a panoramic view of the town and valley. We were the only ones sitting there! The meal was a 3-course prix fixe with wine for €10. A memorable meal. Needless to say, the main course was cuisse de canard, but no salade de gésiers (which I had come to enjoy).
Our base for the two week stay was La Roque-Gageac which we loved, and I was amazed that in that time we never travelled much beyond a 30km radius of town and still didn't see everything we wanted.
You mentioned a site overlooking Rocamadour that appeared off-limit to tourists. I believe that it used to be a monastery, but is now used by the local diocese as a conference and retreat centre. At any rate when we were there, we noticed a sign on the gate with a menu, so as it was lunch time, we walked in and asked about it and were led through halls to a large dining hall. We asked if it would be possible to sit outside, so they set a table on the terrace with a panoramic view of the town and valley. We were the only ones sitting there! The meal was a 3-course prix fixe with wine for €10. A memorable meal. Needless to say, the main course was cuisse de canard, but no salade de gésiers (which I had come to enjoy).
Our base for the two week stay was La Roque-Gageac which we loved, and I was amazed that in that time we never travelled much beyond a 30km radius of town and still didn't see everything we wanted.
Dec 12th, 2006, 03:46 PM
#108
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Foie Gras at Dinner, for a Change
Day 19: Wednesday, October 04, 2006
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
We were starting to slow down – our internal batteries were getting low after almost three weeks of traveling. We started the day off slowly, not having slept particularly well after the epic storm of the previous night. By the time the sun came up, the rain had stopped, and while it was still fairly cloudy out, the day looked like it might brighten up a bit.
After breakfast we drove into Sarlat to see how much smaller the Wednesday market was than the Saturday market. We parked at our usual spot, up near the tourist info centre above town, and walked the short distance into the old part of the city. While the market was a bit smaller than on Saturday, it was still fairly busy. It seemed that the Wednesday market focused more on food and things that the locals might buy, whereas the weekend market catered more directly to the tourists.
We wandered about for a while – we can spend hours looking at all the carts and stalls in French markets. I even managed to buy some (almost) Laguiole knives for only €20 – you can hardly tell they’re not real Laguiole, even if you’re as close as 5 feet from them! In addition, it seemed to be cèpes season and most of the vendors had baskets piled high with the giant brown mushrooms – some of the things were bigger than my head (and no, I’m not exaggerating – I’ve got the photos to prove it).
We spent quite a while exploring, stopping several times to recharge my caffeine levels at various cafés around town. Of course we had to buy some foie gras – we found a sampler pack that not only looked tasty (5 different styles of foie gras) but was also small enough to fit in our already full suitcases. We were also forced to buy some walnut oil, as we could hardly leave what seemed to be the walnut capital of the world without it. Eventually we got tired of fighting the crowds, and had seen pretty much everything we were going to see, so we got back into the car and started driving.
Our goal was to see the cave paintings in Lascaux II; however we noticed the sign for nearby St. Genies as we drove and had heard that the church there was interesting. We took the exit and drove down into the village to find the church – it didn’t take long. While the church looked interesting from the outside, it was closed so we couldn’t see inside. We tried to look around the village for a bit, but there isn’t very much of it to look at – St Genies is small. As there was nothing to do there, we left.
It didn’t take long to reach the parking lots for Lascaux II (and Lascaux I for that matter). There weren’t many people around, and we didn’t have to wait in line to buy tickets (I’d heard horror stories about epic lines and throngs of people). We joined the small group waiting for the English tour to begin.
Soon enough we got underway – the 20 or so people in the group with us crammed into the first room so that we could get the introductory lecture on the history of the Lascaux site and the Lascaux II reproduction. The caves themselves were discovered (or rediscovered, depending on how you look at it) in 1940 by yet another group of enterprising teenagers who found a hole in the ground and thought to themselves “I bet we’d stand a good chance of killing ourselves if we crawl down that little itty-bitty hole in the ground…Georges, you go first” (one of them was really named Georges). They found paintings which were later dated as being somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15,000 years old.
The carbon dioxide from the breath of the 12,000 or so visitors a year was starting to damage the paintings and the entire site was closed down in the 1960’s. It wasn’t until the 70’s that work began on the Lascaux II interpretive centre – it took 11 years for artists and historians to re-create exactly the two most famous chambers in Lascaux – the Great Hall of the Bulls and the Painted Gallery. They did a hell of a job – apparently the features of the rocks are exact to within a few millimeters and the paintings themselves are almost photographic reproductions.
Despite the fact that it’s a reproduction, the Lascaux II tour is incredible. It’s almost dizzying to stand in the bottom of the chamber and look up at the animals all around you – they’re bigger than I’d imagined and circle the entire room – it almost feels as if you’re standing in the middle of a herd of bulls. I’m glad we went in October – apparently in the middle of summer, they take tours of 40 people at a time through there, and the tours run every 10 minutes between 8:00am and 8:00pm – that’s 70 tours/day, which means around 2800 people file through there. Our smaller tour group was just fine by me.
After the tour, we contemplated wandering through the woods to find the site of the original cave entrance, but decided that a) we were tired and b) it’s just a closed-off hole in the ground. We got back in the car and started back. We decided that the best plan of attack would be to go back to the hotel and have a quick nap and possibly a glass of wine (although not at the same time, that’d be a feat, even for us) before heading out for dinner.
Our excellent sense of timing was working overtime again – no sooner had we arrived back in our room than the skies opened up and the torrential rains began. We watched out the window for a bit, and I managed to sleep for a while. The rain cleared up just as we were getting ready to head back into Sarlat for dinner.
We arrived in town a bit early, so had a drink at one of the many cafés around the main square. It’s amazing how quiet Sarlat is when the market is gone and the tourists have all left. As much as we liked the town during the day, it’s so much better in the early evening, when you have the medieval streets and alleyways almost entirely to yourself.
Dinner was at one of the fancier restaurants in town – Le Présidial. For a change, both Jamie and I ordered from the cheaper set menu – normally we’ll go for the fancier and more expensive side. In this case, even with the cheap menu (€26) I had a foie gras terrine starter, duck cassoulet (also known as heaven in a dish, with duck), a cheese plate featuring more local cheese, and finally a nougat desert. Jamie’s dinner was similarly impressive, starting with 12 escargot stuffed with duck confit, then breast of duck with poached peaches, the cheese, and then a chocolate mousse. All this, plus a half bottle of wine and a kir for Jamie to start only came to €78 – one of our cheapest dinners yet!
After dinner, we grabbed the tripod from the car and wandered around the almost deserted town, getting some really good shots of the empty streets. I sometimes feel nervous when I’m out and about at night with my camera, but not in Sarlat. We spent quite a while wandering around before finally deciding to call it a night and head back to the hotel.
Day 19: Wednesday, October 04, 2006
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
We were starting to slow down – our internal batteries were getting low after almost three weeks of traveling. We started the day off slowly, not having slept particularly well after the epic storm of the previous night. By the time the sun came up, the rain had stopped, and while it was still fairly cloudy out, the day looked like it might brighten up a bit.
After breakfast we drove into Sarlat to see how much smaller the Wednesday market was than the Saturday market. We parked at our usual spot, up near the tourist info centre above town, and walked the short distance into the old part of the city. While the market was a bit smaller than on Saturday, it was still fairly busy. It seemed that the Wednesday market focused more on food and things that the locals might buy, whereas the weekend market catered more directly to the tourists.
We wandered about for a while – we can spend hours looking at all the carts and stalls in French markets. I even managed to buy some (almost) Laguiole knives for only €20 – you can hardly tell they’re not real Laguiole, even if you’re as close as 5 feet from them! In addition, it seemed to be cèpes season and most of the vendors had baskets piled high with the giant brown mushrooms – some of the things were bigger than my head (and no, I’m not exaggerating – I’ve got the photos to prove it).
We spent quite a while exploring, stopping several times to recharge my caffeine levels at various cafés around town. Of course we had to buy some foie gras – we found a sampler pack that not only looked tasty (5 different styles of foie gras) but was also small enough to fit in our already full suitcases. We were also forced to buy some walnut oil, as we could hardly leave what seemed to be the walnut capital of the world without it. Eventually we got tired of fighting the crowds, and had seen pretty much everything we were going to see, so we got back into the car and started driving.
Our goal was to see the cave paintings in Lascaux II; however we noticed the sign for nearby St. Genies as we drove and had heard that the church there was interesting. We took the exit and drove down into the village to find the church – it didn’t take long. While the church looked interesting from the outside, it was closed so we couldn’t see inside. We tried to look around the village for a bit, but there isn’t very much of it to look at – St Genies is small. As there was nothing to do there, we left.
It didn’t take long to reach the parking lots for Lascaux II (and Lascaux I for that matter). There weren’t many people around, and we didn’t have to wait in line to buy tickets (I’d heard horror stories about epic lines and throngs of people). We joined the small group waiting for the English tour to begin.
Soon enough we got underway – the 20 or so people in the group with us crammed into the first room so that we could get the introductory lecture on the history of the Lascaux site and the Lascaux II reproduction. The caves themselves were discovered (or rediscovered, depending on how you look at it) in 1940 by yet another group of enterprising teenagers who found a hole in the ground and thought to themselves “I bet we’d stand a good chance of killing ourselves if we crawl down that little itty-bitty hole in the ground…Georges, you go first” (one of them was really named Georges). They found paintings which were later dated as being somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15,000 years old.
The carbon dioxide from the breath of the 12,000 or so visitors a year was starting to damage the paintings and the entire site was closed down in the 1960’s. It wasn’t until the 70’s that work began on the Lascaux II interpretive centre – it took 11 years for artists and historians to re-create exactly the two most famous chambers in Lascaux – the Great Hall of the Bulls and the Painted Gallery. They did a hell of a job – apparently the features of the rocks are exact to within a few millimeters and the paintings themselves are almost photographic reproductions.
Despite the fact that it’s a reproduction, the Lascaux II tour is incredible. It’s almost dizzying to stand in the bottom of the chamber and look up at the animals all around you – they’re bigger than I’d imagined and circle the entire room – it almost feels as if you’re standing in the middle of a herd of bulls. I’m glad we went in October – apparently in the middle of summer, they take tours of 40 people at a time through there, and the tours run every 10 minutes between 8:00am and 8:00pm – that’s 70 tours/day, which means around 2800 people file through there. Our smaller tour group was just fine by me.
After the tour, we contemplated wandering through the woods to find the site of the original cave entrance, but decided that a) we were tired and b) it’s just a closed-off hole in the ground. We got back in the car and started back. We decided that the best plan of attack would be to go back to the hotel and have a quick nap and possibly a glass of wine (although not at the same time, that’d be a feat, even for us) before heading out for dinner.
Our excellent sense of timing was working overtime again – no sooner had we arrived back in our room than the skies opened up and the torrential rains began. We watched out the window for a bit, and I managed to sleep for a while. The rain cleared up just as we were getting ready to head back into Sarlat for dinner.
We arrived in town a bit early, so had a drink at one of the many cafés around the main square. It’s amazing how quiet Sarlat is when the market is gone and the tourists have all left. As much as we liked the town during the day, it’s so much better in the early evening, when you have the medieval streets and alleyways almost entirely to yourself.
Dinner was at one of the fancier restaurants in town – Le Présidial. For a change, both Jamie and I ordered from the cheaper set menu – normally we’ll go for the fancier and more expensive side. In this case, even with the cheap menu (€26) I had a foie gras terrine starter, duck cassoulet (also known as heaven in a dish, with duck), a cheese plate featuring more local cheese, and finally a nougat desert. Jamie’s dinner was similarly impressive, starting with 12 escargot stuffed with duck confit, then breast of duck with poached peaches, the cheese, and then a chocolate mousse. All this, plus a half bottle of wine and a kir for Jamie to start only came to €78 – one of our cheapest dinners yet!
After dinner, we grabbed the tripod from the car and wandered around the almost deserted town, getting some really good shots of the empty streets. I sometimes feel nervous when I’m out and about at night with my camera, but not in Sarlat. We spent quite a while wandering around before finally deciding to call it a night and head back to the hotel.
Dec 12th, 2006, 05:51 PM
#109
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 23,023
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
BikerScott,
The inside of the church in St. Geniès is not particularly interesting, because it was redone in the 19th century after the roof caved in, I believe. But you missed the chapel above the town which has traces of old frescoes, and it is the stone roof ensemble around the church and the manor house next to it which is the real reason to visit the town. The local boulangerie has an exceptional almost flat bread.
The inside of the church in St. Geniès is not particularly interesting, because it was redone in the 19th century after the roof caved in, I believe. But you missed the chapel above the town which has traces of old frescoes, and it is the stone roof ensemble around the church and the manor house next to it which is the real reason to visit the town. The local boulangerie has an exceptional almost flat bread.
Dec 12th, 2006, 05:57 PM
#110
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 6,117
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
My husband missed the most exciting thing in the market at Sarlat (to me). I had always thought of Border Collies as dogs that herded sheep. Here came one through the center of the crowd herding about a dozen large geese!! The crowd was aplauding and the Border Collie knew it was for him as he herded them right into their pen.
Dec 18th, 2006, 09:48 AM
#111
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Day 20 - Thursday, October 05, 2006:
It Never Looks as Far on a Map
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
We got up at the usual hour and had another excellent breakfast in the common room. Our plan for the day included visiting the medieval town of Figeac and some of the other villages to the south, as well as doing another load of laundry (I was getting close to an underbritches emergency).
We hit the road and started driving towards Sarlat, eyes peeled for a full-service laundromat like the one we’d found in St Remy. As we drove past on the road just before Sarlat, I spotted a sign just next to the big Hypermarche. We pulled off and took a quick look – much to our dismay it was a self serve. Not to worry – we’d seen an ad for a laundromat in Sarlat itself on the tourist map – this one had to be full serve. We drove through town and found the appropriate parking lot and walked the short distance to the shop. Again, it was self service. We didn’t want to spend the entire morning sitting in the Laundromat in Sarlat, so we packed our bag of dirty laundry back to Floriane and headed south, towards Figeac.
We eventually realized that the distance on the map was a bit misleading – it ended up taking us a full two hours of driving to get all the way to town. It turned out that our normally exquisite sense of timing was a bit off, as we’d arrived at 12:30 – lunch time in France and it seemed that all of Figeac was out. We took this as a sign, and found a little bar for a little light lunch of our own.
Lunch didn’t take that much time, and our only real plan was to do the walking tour from the Green Guide, however with everything shut down for lunch, that didn’t seem like the best idea. We’d noticed a self-serve laundromat on the way and decided to take the opportunity to get my damn underbritches cleaned. We grabbed the bag of laundry from the car along with our books and sat down to watch things spin.
After reading a few chapters of our books, the laundry was done. We dropped our bag back off at the car and started the walking tour. We had mixed feelings about Figeac. It looked beautiful at first glance – lots of medieval houses that seem like they haven’t been touched for at least a couple of hundred year. As we walked, that impression became stronger as we noticed all the broken windows, chipped walls, and boarded up stores. Even after lunch, Figeac didn’t really get noticeably busier, and we didn’t ever feel all that comfortable there.
After finishing the tour, we didn’t feel like spending any more time in Figeac. We grabbed the car and headed towards the hill-town and famous church of St. Cirq Lapopie. Again, the drive took a bit longer than we’d expected and by the time we got to St. Cirq, we were a bit tired of the trip. We drove up to the top of the hill were St. Cirq is precariously perched and discovered that we didn’t have quite enough change for the parking lot close to town. There were two other parking lots, one way above town, and one way down at the bottom of the impressively steep hill. Neither of us felt like walking that far, especially up and down the hill, so we turned around and left, stopping briefly on the way to take some pictures of the beautiful village.
Instead of driving back the way we’d come, we decided to continue on to the A-20 and take the fast route back up to Sarlat. This seemed like a good idea on paper, but again, turned out to be quite a bit farther than we’d expected. Fortunately, the drive between St. Cirq and the auto route turned out to be the most scenic and exciting of the entire trip. The road winds up (or down, I’m not sure which direction) the Lot valley, wedged tightly between the Lot river and the cliff face beside it. At points the road cuts under the cliff – not quite a tunnel, but certainly not beside the rock either. It’s a bit unnerving to have several hundred tonnes of stone hanging over your head.
We eventually made it out to the A-20 and it didn’t take too long to get back to the hotel. I’d pretty much done all the driving that I wanted to do that day, so we choose to go back to the little Auberge Les Plantades up the road – I felt like I could handle three kilometers, but not much more than that.
Dinner, as with earlier in the week, was fantastic. We both went for the same dinner this time – the foie gras terrine and then the duck breast with chorizo sausage on a wheat risotto. As we left, we told the waiter (and owner, I assume) that it was our favourite restaurant in all of the Périgord – it combined the best of French rural hospitality with really good food, and an excellent homemade vin aux noix (walnut wine), which goes a long way in quality restaurants.
We got home fairly early and enjoyed a nice glass of local Pecharment wine before collapsing in bed. A long day of driving and some really beautiful scenery, ended with an excellent meal – a good day in my books.
It Never Looks as Far on a Map
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
We got up at the usual hour and had another excellent breakfast in the common room. Our plan for the day included visiting the medieval town of Figeac and some of the other villages to the south, as well as doing another load of laundry (I was getting close to an underbritches emergency).
We hit the road and started driving towards Sarlat, eyes peeled for a full-service laundromat like the one we’d found in St Remy. As we drove past on the road just before Sarlat, I spotted a sign just next to the big Hypermarche. We pulled off and took a quick look – much to our dismay it was a self serve. Not to worry – we’d seen an ad for a laundromat in Sarlat itself on the tourist map – this one had to be full serve. We drove through town and found the appropriate parking lot and walked the short distance to the shop. Again, it was self service. We didn’t want to spend the entire morning sitting in the Laundromat in Sarlat, so we packed our bag of dirty laundry back to Floriane and headed south, towards Figeac.
We eventually realized that the distance on the map was a bit misleading – it ended up taking us a full two hours of driving to get all the way to town. It turned out that our normally exquisite sense of timing was a bit off, as we’d arrived at 12:30 – lunch time in France and it seemed that all of Figeac was out. We took this as a sign, and found a little bar for a little light lunch of our own.
Lunch didn’t take that much time, and our only real plan was to do the walking tour from the Green Guide, however with everything shut down for lunch, that didn’t seem like the best idea. We’d noticed a self-serve laundromat on the way and decided to take the opportunity to get my damn underbritches cleaned. We grabbed the bag of laundry from the car along with our books and sat down to watch things spin.
After reading a few chapters of our books, the laundry was done. We dropped our bag back off at the car and started the walking tour. We had mixed feelings about Figeac. It looked beautiful at first glance – lots of medieval houses that seem like they haven’t been touched for at least a couple of hundred year. As we walked, that impression became stronger as we noticed all the broken windows, chipped walls, and boarded up stores. Even after lunch, Figeac didn’t really get noticeably busier, and we didn’t ever feel all that comfortable there.
After finishing the tour, we didn’t feel like spending any more time in Figeac. We grabbed the car and headed towards the hill-town and famous church of St. Cirq Lapopie. Again, the drive took a bit longer than we’d expected and by the time we got to St. Cirq, we were a bit tired of the trip. We drove up to the top of the hill were St. Cirq is precariously perched and discovered that we didn’t have quite enough change for the parking lot close to town. There were two other parking lots, one way above town, and one way down at the bottom of the impressively steep hill. Neither of us felt like walking that far, especially up and down the hill, so we turned around and left, stopping briefly on the way to take some pictures of the beautiful village.
Instead of driving back the way we’d come, we decided to continue on to the A-20 and take the fast route back up to Sarlat. This seemed like a good idea on paper, but again, turned out to be quite a bit farther than we’d expected. Fortunately, the drive between St. Cirq and the auto route turned out to be the most scenic and exciting of the entire trip. The road winds up (or down, I’m not sure which direction) the Lot valley, wedged tightly between the Lot river and the cliff face beside it. At points the road cuts under the cliff – not quite a tunnel, but certainly not beside the rock either. It’s a bit unnerving to have several hundred tonnes of stone hanging over your head.
We eventually made it out to the A-20 and it didn’t take too long to get back to the hotel. I’d pretty much done all the driving that I wanted to do that day, so we choose to go back to the little Auberge Les Plantades up the road – I felt like I could handle three kilometers, but not much more than that.
Dinner, as with earlier in the week, was fantastic. We both went for the same dinner this time – the foie gras terrine and then the duck breast with chorizo sausage on a wheat risotto. As we left, we told the waiter (and owner, I assume) that it was our favourite restaurant in all of the Périgord – it combined the best of French rural hospitality with really good food, and an excellent homemade vin aux noix (walnut wine), which goes a long way in quality restaurants.
We got home fairly early and enjoyed a nice glass of local Pecharment wine before collapsing in bed. A long day of driving and some really beautiful scenery, ended with an excellent meal – a good day in my books.
Dec 19th, 2006, 06:22 AM
#114
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
cigalechanta - maybe it was because it was pouring rain and dark that you couldn't really see where you were driving, and exactly how much rock was hanging over your head as you went...it wasn't bad near St. Cirq itself, but as you headed away from it towards the A-20 (don't remember the name of the town the on-ramp is at...it's a fairly long drive though)...or maybe it was because we'd just been told a few days prior how a great chunk of the cliffs at La Roque Gageac fell on the town a while ago...
Dec 19th, 2006, 01:11 PM
#115
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Day 21: Friday, October 06, 2006
Two Out of Five Ain’t Bad
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
By this point, I have to admit that I was getting a bit tired of the traditional French breakfast. I can really only eat so many croissants at the start of the day – sometimes I just want a nice egg or a bowl or cereal or something. Can’t get tired of the coffee though – there’s nothing better than good French coffee. Except, possibly, French wine. Or Calvados. Or foie gras on little rounds of toast. The mission for Day 21 was to drive north for a change and explore Périgueux. We’d seen quite a bit of the south Périgord but hadn’t really ventured north past where we were staying. There didn’t seem to be a lot up there, at least on the map, but we figured we’d give it a try.
The drive to Périgueux from Sarlat is nice, except for the bit as you enter town – it’s a bit industrial. It only took us about an hour, and after some brief panic and a few circles around a big park area at the edge town brought us to a conveniently located parkade near the tourist office. After securing Floriane, we went to pick up our usual stack of brochures and maps from the office, and immediately went for a coffee.
Périgueux is separated into two sections – the old Gallo-roman side of town and the medieval side. The Tourist Office offers tours of both sections on different days, and we signed up for the Gallo-Roman tour that was being offered that day. The tour didn’t start for a few hours; however we had a self-guided tour map of the medieval side, which we decided to explore.
Unlike Figeac the day before, we immediately liked Périgueux. The town seems open and bright, with lots of people around – and as far as we could tell, not too many were tourists. The medieval side of the city seems like it’s fairly well preserved with a lot of old buildings and houses around. The walking tour was interesting and we got to see a fair bit of the city. There was a small market going in one of the many squares throughout town – not as big as Sarlat’s market, but still worth a look.
The market is also viciously efficient – promptly at one o’clock in the afternoon, the street cleaner machine arrived in the square were the market had been (and still was, for a few tardy vendors). They started driving back and forth in the giant washer/sweeper machine, pedestrians and the few remaining vendors scrambling out of the way. Mere seconds after the street cleaners left, a wave of small cars descended on the once bustling square, and it instantly became a parking lot.
We were so entertained by this display that we decided to have lunch (non-sequiturs are fun any time of day). We found a likely looking restaurant on the edge of one of the busier squares and sat down to yet another pizza and some wine. Pizza, like morning croissants, was getting a bit old – we have noticed that in certain regions of France, it’s hard to find much variation in menus from place to place. We rested our feet and enjoyed the wine for a while, waiting for our 2pm tour to start.
Finally, we wandered back to the tourist office to join our tour group. One of the great things about traveling in what is nearly the off-season is that tours are still being offered, however there aren’t any tourists about to spoil it. The tour we were on was supposed to be all in French, however the Norwegian couple who were the only others on the tour with us mentioned that they were as comfortable in English as in French, so the guide switched for us, which was nice.
I find it amazing how much of the roman roots of so many towns and cities remain almost 2000 years after most of it was built. The gallo-roman side of town has quite a few features still standing, although not always in its original format – the old broken tower is all that remains of a temple to one of the roman goddesses, and the old arena was torn down in the 3rd century to build a massive protective wall around the town (10 metres high and 3 metres thick in places – they were serious about their walls back then – it was so big, a few current houses are built using the old wall as a foundation. Granted, they’re very narrow houses, but still).
After the tour we decided to head back south. There wasn’t much that we wanted to see up north considering how tired we were – after 3 solid weeks of tramping around the country, we were feeling a bit more relaxed about missing a few things here and there. It was about 4:30 when we left, and we rolled into the parking lot of our hotel at about 5:30 – not bad time, especially as we didn’t get lost very much at all on the way home.
After a brief nap and the requisite glass of wine, we drove out to Vezac to eat a restaurant called “Relais des Cinq Châteaux,” which had been highly recommended to us. The main selling point for us of the restaurant is that evidently 5 castles can be seen from the parking lot – evidently 3 of them are only visible in the daytime as we could only see Castelnaud and the châteaux built by Beynac to keep a better eye on Castelnaud.
Dinner was reasonably good (and included a foie gras starter – for those of you keeping track at home, that makes seven consecutive meals which have included foie gras – I LOVE France); however the floor show was fantastic. Sitting not to far from us was an elderly British couple who gave every appearance of being on a date – they chatted about various things in very proper Queen’s English for quite a while. It felt like listening to an episode of “Keeping Up Appearances”, except without Hyacinth.
After dinner, we took a few pictures of the two châteaux’s that we could see and headed home. We’d saved one of our bottles of Meursault Pinot Noir to enjoy on what was going to be our last evening in the Périgord. While this wasn’t our last night, we felt that the penultimate night was a good enough reason to pop it open.
Two Out of Five Ain’t Bad
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
By this point, I have to admit that I was getting a bit tired of the traditional French breakfast. I can really only eat so many croissants at the start of the day – sometimes I just want a nice egg or a bowl or cereal or something. Can’t get tired of the coffee though – there’s nothing better than good French coffee. Except, possibly, French wine. Or Calvados. Or foie gras on little rounds of toast. The mission for Day 21 was to drive north for a change and explore Périgueux. We’d seen quite a bit of the south Périgord but hadn’t really ventured north past where we were staying. There didn’t seem to be a lot up there, at least on the map, but we figured we’d give it a try.
The drive to Périgueux from Sarlat is nice, except for the bit as you enter town – it’s a bit industrial. It only took us about an hour, and after some brief panic and a few circles around a big park area at the edge town brought us to a conveniently located parkade near the tourist office. After securing Floriane, we went to pick up our usual stack of brochures and maps from the office, and immediately went for a coffee.
Périgueux is separated into two sections – the old Gallo-roman side of town and the medieval side. The Tourist Office offers tours of both sections on different days, and we signed up for the Gallo-Roman tour that was being offered that day. The tour didn’t start for a few hours; however we had a self-guided tour map of the medieval side, which we decided to explore.
Unlike Figeac the day before, we immediately liked Périgueux. The town seems open and bright, with lots of people around – and as far as we could tell, not too many were tourists. The medieval side of the city seems like it’s fairly well preserved with a lot of old buildings and houses around. The walking tour was interesting and we got to see a fair bit of the city. There was a small market going in one of the many squares throughout town – not as big as Sarlat’s market, but still worth a look.
The market is also viciously efficient – promptly at one o’clock in the afternoon, the street cleaner machine arrived in the square were the market had been (and still was, for a few tardy vendors). They started driving back and forth in the giant washer/sweeper machine, pedestrians and the few remaining vendors scrambling out of the way. Mere seconds after the street cleaners left, a wave of small cars descended on the once bustling square, and it instantly became a parking lot.
We were so entertained by this display that we decided to have lunch (non-sequiturs are fun any time of day). We found a likely looking restaurant on the edge of one of the busier squares and sat down to yet another pizza and some wine. Pizza, like morning croissants, was getting a bit old – we have noticed that in certain regions of France, it’s hard to find much variation in menus from place to place. We rested our feet and enjoyed the wine for a while, waiting for our 2pm tour to start.
Finally, we wandered back to the tourist office to join our tour group. One of the great things about traveling in what is nearly the off-season is that tours are still being offered, however there aren’t any tourists about to spoil it. The tour we were on was supposed to be all in French, however the Norwegian couple who were the only others on the tour with us mentioned that they were as comfortable in English as in French, so the guide switched for us, which was nice.
I find it amazing how much of the roman roots of so many towns and cities remain almost 2000 years after most of it was built. The gallo-roman side of town has quite a few features still standing, although not always in its original format – the old broken tower is all that remains of a temple to one of the roman goddesses, and the old arena was torn down in the 3rd century to build a massive protective wall around the town (10 metres high and 3 metres thick in places – they were serious about their walls back then – it was so big, a few current houses are built using the old wall as a foundation. Granted, they’re very narrow houses, but still).
After the tour we decided to head back south. There wasn’t much that we wanted to see up north considering how tired we were – after 3 solid weeks of tramping around the country, we were feeling a bit more relaxed about missing a few things here and there. It was about 4:30 when we left, and we rolled into the parking lot of our hotel at about 5:30 – not bad time, especially as we didn’t get lost very much at all on the way home.
After a brief nap and the requisite glass of wine, we drove out to Vezac to eat a restaurant called “Relais des Cinq Châteaux,” which had been highly recommended to us. The main selling point for us of the restaurant is that evidently 5 castles can be seen from the parking lot – evidently 3 of them are only visible in the daytime as we could only see Castelnaud and the châteaux built by Beynac to keep a better eye on Castelnaud.
Dinner was reasonably good (and included a foie gras starter – for those of you keeping track at home, that makes seven consecutive meals which have included foie gras – I LOVE France); however the floor show was fantastic. Sitting not to far from us was an elderly British couple who gave every appearance of being on a date – they chatted about various things in very proper Queen’s English for quite a while. It felt like listening to an episode of “Keeping Up Appearances”, except without Hyacinth.
After dinner, we took a few pictures of the two châteaux’s that we could see and headed home. We’d saved one of our bottles of Meursault Pinot Noir to enjoy on what was going to be our last evening in the Périgord. While this wasn’t our last night, we felt that the penultimate night was a good enough reason to pop it open.
Dec 20th, 2006, 02:37 PM
#116
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Day 22 & 23: Saturday, October 07, 2006 – Sunday, October 8, 2006
One Last Liver
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
Our last non-travel day in France dawned bright and sunny. We’d managed to sleep in a bit later than usual, and were feeling very relaxed about our plans for the day, as they included almost nothing. We started with a leisurely breakfast in the common room before getting ourselves together and heading into Sarlat for the big Saturday market.
The Saturday market is quite a bit bigger and far more crowded that the Wednesday market – in addition to all the food stalls, there were any number of merchants selling vast quantities of espadrilles, little plates with built-in spikes for the efficient grinding of garlic (and, presumably, fingertips), and other assorted bits of crap. We puttered about the market for a couple of hours, amusing ourselves by walking very slowly in front of people, stopping rapidly in the middle of narrow areas with no warning, and standing for long periods in front of stalls that other people obviously wanted to look at. Okay – we didn’t do that, other people did, only to us (damn tourists, I assumed). Despite the hordes around us, we did manage to find some things to buy – a bottle of truffle oil and a bottle of walnut oil (already having bought some almost really nice knives and foie gras earlier).
After a very nice lunch somewhat away from the market area (which, of course, included a foie gras course), we decided that we’d had enough of the throngs of people in Sarlat and would head back to the hotel for a relaxing afternoon of relaxing, reading, enjoying a few glasses of wine, and packing for our trip home.
At 8pm, we headed over to the common room for what was going to be our last dinner in the Périgord. The power remained on all night, unlike our previous attempt at dinner at the hotel – this evening we enjoyed a Périgordine salad (yes, with gessiers), roasted duck breast, a fantastic warm goat cheese plate, and finally the chocolate fondant desert we’d missed the last time. Full and slightly sad at the thought of leaving, we got to bed at a reasonable hour so that we wouldn’t be quite so exhausted for our full day of travel.
Sunday was another beautiful day – perfect for our drive to Toulouse to drop off poor Floriane and catch the train back up to Paris. The drive down to Toulouse was uneventful, until we actually entered the city. The map book we had was reasonably good for driving around the countryside, but just wasn’t detailed enough to be useful once you’d crossed into the maze of streets and alleys in any French city.
Fortunately the signs in Toulouse aren’t that bad, and we managed to get to the area of the train station relatively painlessly, although driving through a market wasn’t much fun. We realized when we found the station that we had no idea where to drop the car off. We did a quick pass past the front, not seeing anything that looked like a car drop-off. We realized at this point that we’d neglected to fill the tank before arriving.
While signage for train stations is excellent, trying to find a gas station isn’t quite as much fun. We ended up having to drive around for about 45 minutes before we finally found a place at which we could pay cash (we did find one quite quickly, but it only accepted chipped credit cards). After filling up the tank, we made our way back to the train station to try to figure out where to drop off the car. We decided that the best plan would be to find a parking lot somewhere and wander around until we saw the car rental drop off.
It took two passes, but we finally found a parkade at the train station. I took my little parking chit and drove up the ramp. On the second level, I noticed a sign that said something about rental cars on the third level. I drove up that ramp and was confronted by a little parking-ticket taking machine, into which I shoved my ticket. The gate opened and I drove forward, only to realize that we’d found the car drop-off area completely by accident. We parked poor Floriane and unpacked our things from the trunk – we were going to miss the old girl; she’d been a fantastic car. A quick calculation showed that we’d driven almost 3,500 kms in just under three weeks, and had only had to fill up the gas tank 4 times. You can’t ask for much more than that from a car.
We took the elevator down to the station itself, and after a brief and slightly frightening walk past a group of homeless folk to get cash at the only ATM in the area, we settled down to wait for our train. It didn’t take long before our gate was announced and we boarded our car – we’d managed to score first-class seats on a seat sale and settled in to enjoy the 6 hour trip.
The ride was fairly uneventful as we watched the countryside roll by. The afternoon faded into evening, and finally into darkness as we reached Paris. We grabbed our bags from the front of the car and walked towards the metro, finding our way back to Hotel St. Jacques somewhat late in the evening. We quickly stopped into La Petite Périgordine for a snack and a final bottle of wine before retiring to our room, tired and sad.
France had captured our hearts – we’d discovered that there is so much outside of Paris that we’d never dreamed existed – or rather, we’d dreamt of it, but didn’t think it was really out there. It sort of felt like going to Disneyland, and then discovering that it was all real. We spent most of the trip home plotting our return, hopefully to a small cottage that we would own somewhere in Burgundy or the Périgord (or a massive châteaux with an army of staff – we’re not picky). We talked about the places we’d seen, the people we’d met, and most importantly, the endless gallons wine we’d drunk and the battalions of geese and ducks that gave up their lives for the foie gras that we’d eaten.
One Last Liver
(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)
Our last non-travel day in France dawned bright and sunny. We’d managed to sleep in a bit later than usual, and were feeling very relaxed about our plans for the day, as they included almost nothing. We started with a leisurely breakfast in the common room before getting ourselves together and heading into Sarlat for the big Saturday market.
The Saturday market is quite a bit bigger and far more crowded that the Wednesday market – in addition to all the food stalls, there were any number of merchants selling vast quantities of espadrilles, little plates with built-in spikes for the efficient grinding of garlic (and, presumably, fingertips), and other assorted bits of crap. We puttered about the market for a couple of hours, amusing ourselves by walking very slowly in front of people, stopping rapidly in the middle of narrow areas with no warning, and standing for long periods in front of stalls that other people obviously wanted to look at. Okay – we didn’t do that, other people did, only to us (damn tourists, I assumed). Despite the hordes around us, we did manage to find some things to buy – a bottle of truffle oil and a bottle of walnut oil (already having bought some almost really nice knives and foie gras earlier).
After a very nice lunch somewhat away from the market area (which, of course, included a foie gras course), we decided that we’d had enough of the throngs of people in Sarlat and would head back to the hotel for a relaxing afternoon of relaxing, reading, enjoying a few glasses of wine, and packing for our trip home.
At 8pm, we headed over to the common room for what was going to be our last dinner in the Périgord. The power remained on all night, unlike our previous attempt at dinner at the hotel – this evening we enjoyed a Périgordine salad (yes, with gessiers), roasted duck breast, a fantastic warm goat cheese plate, and finally the chocolate fondant desert we’d missed the last time. Full and slightly sad at the thought of leaving, we got to bed at a reasonable hour so that we wouldn’t be quite so exhausted for our full day of travel.
Sunday was another beautiful day – perfect for our drive to Toulouse to drop off poor Floriane and catch the train back up to Paris. The drive down to Toulouse was uneventful, until we actually entered the city. The map book we had was reasonably good for driving around the countryside, but just wasn’t detailed enough to be useful once you’d crossed into the maze of streets and alleys in any French city.
Fortunately the signs in Toulouse aren’t that bad, and we managed to get to the area of the train station relatively painlessly, although driving through a market wasn’t much fun. We realized when we found the station that we had no idea where to drop the car off. We did a quick pass past the front, not seeing anything that looked like a car drop-off. We realized at this point that we’d neglected to fill the tank before arriving.
While signage for train stations is excellent, trying to find a gas station isn’t quite as much fun. We ended up having to drive around for about 45 minutes before we finally found a place at which we could pay cash (we did find one quite quickly, but it only accepted chipped credit cards). After filling up the tank, we made our way back to the train station to try to figure out where to drop off the car. We decided that the best plan would be to find a parking lot somewhere and wander around until we saw the car rental drop off.
It took two passes, but we finally found a parkade at the train station. I took my little parking chit and drove up the ramp. On the second level, I noticed a sign that said something about rental cars on the third level. I drove up that ramp and was confronted by a little parking-ticket taking machine, into which I shoved my ticket. The gate opened and I drove forward, only to realize that we’d found the car drop-off area completely by accident. We parked poor Floriane and unpacked our things from the trunk – we were going to miss the old girl; she’d been a fantastic car. A quick calculation showed that we’d driven almost 3,500 kms in just under three weeks, and had only had to fill up the gas tank 4 times. You can’t ask for much more than that from a car.
We took the elevator down to the station itself, and after a brief and slightly frightening walk past a group of homeless folk to get cash at the only ATM in the area, we settled down to wait for our train. It didn’t take long before our gate was announced and we boarded our car – we’d managed to score first-class seats on a seat sale and settled in to enjoy the 6 hour trip.
The ride was fairly uneventful as we watched the countryside roll by. The afternoon faded into evening, and finally into darkness as we reached Paris. We grabbed our bags from the front of the car and walked towards the metro, finding our way back to Hotel St. Jacques somewhat late in the evening. We quickly stopped into La Petite Périgordine for a snack and a final bottle of wine before retiring to our room, tired and sad.
France had captured our hearts – we’d discovered that there is so much outside of Paris that we’d never dreamed existed – or rather, we’d dreamt of it, but didn’t think it was really out there. It sort of felt like going to Disneyland, and then discovering that it was all real. We spent most of the trip home plotting our return, hopefully to a small cottage that we would own somewhere in Burgundy or the Périgord (or a massive châteaux with an army of staff – we’re not picky). We talked about the places we’d seen, the people we’d met, and most importantly, the endless gallons wine we’d drunk and the battalions of geese and ducks that gave up their lives for the foie gras that we’d eaten.
Dec 20th, 2006, 04:47 PM
#117
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 4,725
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
We bought one of those spiked plates (espadrilles?) and love it! great for other things beside garlic.
Great descritions and pictures Biker. Thank you for rekindling memories with your trip report.
Great descritions and pictures Biker. Thank you for rekindling memories with your trip report.
Jan 7th, 2007, 10:18 PM
#118
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Sorry for the delay in responding..
Glad you enjoyed the report Robjame - my next mission is to add another 30,000 words and turn it into an actual book...look for it on bookshelves in the travel section
Glad you enjoyed the report Robjame - my next mission is to add another 30,000 words and turn it into an actual book...look for it on bookshelves in the travel section
Jan 8th, 2007, 07:42 AM
#120
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 1,549
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Looks like, if I get to go anywhere in France this year, it will be Compiegne, north of Paris between Paris and Amiens. I have sort of agreed to exchange with some folks. The reason I say "sort of" is because they do not seem overly anxious to buy tickets. Generally we do that around April for these swaps, as right now the air fare to France for the summer is high and it tends to go down when the pressure to fill seats is on for the summer. Not yet.
I have a deposit down on a trip on the train across Russia (thatis with elderhostel), so that will be canceled or pushed into 2008 if the France deal goes down.
I would use my Compiegne base as a central point to do day trips (and get lost) to some of the cathedrals in northern France. Another possibility is an over night into Belgium to some of the sites connected with the Battle of the Bulge. My Dad, now long deceased, was in the battle and I have always wanted to go there. Bruges is another possibility as I have not been there. While Compiegne is only 80km north of Paris, I am not as interested in visiting there as I have been many times. Might go for a day trip on the train to see a special exhibition, but that is about it.
I have a deposit down on a trip on the train across Russia (thatis with elderhostel), so that will be canceled or pushed into 2008 if the France deal goes down.
I would use my Compiegne base as a central point to do day trips (and get lost) to some of the cathedrals in northern France. Another possibility is an over night into Belgium to some of the sites connected with the Battle of the Bulge. My Dad, now long deceased, was in the battle and I have always wanted to go there. Bruges is another possibility as I have not been there. While Compiegne is only 80km north of Paris, I am not as interested in visiting there as I have been many times. Might go for a day trip on the train to see a special exhibition, but that is about it.
