First days in the Dordogne

We had a very leisurely start on Saturday, not getting going until late morning, but the weather hadn’t really improved much and was still damp and overcast, so there wasn’t much reason to push ourselves.  We did however manage to get the canopy up so at least we had a dry area to protect our outdoor stuff, and had a walk round the site which is even better than we had thought.

There is access to the river Verzere and we watched families canoeing with a guide for a while. There is a produce garden where you can pick herbs and basically anything else that is being grown. The campsite owners encourage their guests to get involved with the garden, planting seeds or even doing a bit of weeding! The site is environmentally friendly and this is shown in many ways – the water is treated using a reed bed, water is recycled and used to water the gardens and to flush the loos. There are solar panels to heat the water and all electricity used comes from renewable energy sources –  more sites should be like this.

After a bit of lunch we set off to get diesel and stock up at the Intermarche 14km down the road – the nearest supermarket!

Diesel in France is much the same price as the UK, although about 30% more than in Spain.  I managed the self service pump without any issues and filled up – hopefully won’t need to do that too often!

French supermarkets are really quite different from their Spanish cousins so we spent more time and money than we’d intended. However, we do now have some local wine and cheese to try!

We exited into a rainstorm but managed to get everything into the car and back to the site without getting too wet.

I once again cooked burgers outside (under cover as it was still raining) and we had an early night.

Sunday was dry but still overcast and chilly, but despite this we decided to go to Sarlat for the day, as our guidebook had a couple of walking routes in it, and everyone had said how lovely Sarlat was.  I was quite happy because as it was Sunday all the shops would be shut!

Sarlat  is indeed a spectacular medieval town and we spent a couple of very happy hours following two walking tours and learning a little about Sarlat’s history, which includes Goose Square where live fowl were auctioned for production of the local foie gras, a tower which looks like a giant phallus which no one is sure about what it was for, and a 16/17th century cathedral with a magnificent organ (no pun intended honestly – I’ll post a picture!) dating back to 1770.  It’s also honeycombed with little passages and alleyways leading to hidden squares – truly beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was in one of these hidden squares that we had the meal of the day – pate and duck for me and salad and coque au vin for Karol.  As we finished it started to rain, so we decided to return to the campsite where we settled down to watch a movie on Netflix as we have great wifi which means we can watch downloaded content for a change!  It was a Scandi film about a Norwegian guy escaping from the Nazi’s in the second world war which had us both gripped and a bit frazzled by the end!

Monday dawned fine and bright (the forecast is getting better by the day) so we once again got in the car and set off to Les Eyzies-de-Tayac about half an hour away. There was a market on, and there’s a museum dedicated to Prehistoric times.  Karol drove for the first time too, which meant I got to look at the scenery on the way there!

We arrived, parked up on the main street, and after a quick stop for coffee hit the market.  It was a bit spartan, with only about a dozen stalls spread out one every 10-20 meters or so, but as a result they were very pleased to see us!  We sampled local cheese, ham, tomatoes and strawberries before buying all four.  The cheese stall holder had a Basque flag displayed on the front of his stall, and it turned out that he was a sheep farmer from the French Basque region who sold the produce from his 450 sheep at markets in this area.  His blue cheese was spectacular  but all the produce was very expensive.  Knaresborough market this is not!

As we were being pestered by the ham stall holder to try his wares Karol heard a “well hello there!” and turned round to find Peter and Carole from the Orio site standing behind us (you remember them – they lent us their spare water pump!)

It turns out they’re staying about 30 minutes away from Les Eyzies-de-Tayac in the other direction, and had decided to visit the same market as us.

We stood chatting for about half an hour and then I suggested we meet up for lunch, to which they readily agreed.  It turned out that they’d actually parked right behind us, so once we’d popped our purchases in the car we found a restaurant and had a nice lunch in the sunshine.  However the inevitable unsettled weather meant that it started to drizzle half way through the meal, so afterwards we all adjourned to the museum where we spent a couple of hours immersing ourselves in prehistoric man and his exploits.

This whole area is littered with sites where prehistoric man lived – up to 55,000 years ago!  There are loads of artefacts to be seen and caves to be visited where you can see at first hand how people lived, how their skills evolved and their lifestyles changed from hunter gatherers to farmers to merchants and traders. We plan to visit La Roque-Saint-Christophe later in the week – its only about one km from the site.

We decided to try out the indoor heated pool at the site when we got back; the water was quite chilly so we only managed a few lengths before we headed for the jacuzzi!

The forecast for Tuesday was better so we decided to visit Chateau Beynac which is a castle from the 10th century which at one time was the property of Richard the Lionheart.  It is located 150m on a rock above the river Dordogne and commands views from the top of the keep as a result.  You can see four other chateaus from up there too!

Satan took us on some very small roads but we eventually parked at the top and bought our tickets which came with an audio guide.  This was very helpful as all the signs were in French, but the accompanying music (added for atmosphere) meant we attracted some very strange looks from the other visitors!

The chateau is being renovated to a very high standard – it’s actually already in really good condition, and has been added to and remodelled over the centuries. Once we’d completed our tour we walked to the bottom of the cliff past ancient houses and artists studios, to get another perspective of this magnificent building from below.  It was a bit of a steep walk back up though!

In the afternoon we ventured out on our bikes to the local village of St Leon sur Vezere which is actually 5 km away!  It’s apparently one of the Beaux Villages in France, and has an 11th century Romanesque church at the centre.

We had a quick look round (it was drizzling again by this time!) then stopped for a local cider alongside the river before cycling back – this time along the other side of the river and away from the main road which was much better.

Back at the campsite we were tempted by the menu of the day, so had dinner and another bottle of their excellent Bergerac vin rouge.