Wednesday 24 July 2013

Massif Central and the Dordogne



Wednesday 17th July

Jacqui made an early start to the day and was working by 7am. At 9am she had a skype call with Pat and she continued to work until lunchtime. We then set off on a  beautiful drive through the Massif Central, Haut Loire and Ardeche regions of France. Last night’s rain had disappeared and after a few hours driving we found ourselves in Murat of the edge of the Auvergne on the Mont de Cantal route. Murat was a lovely old town and we had an enjoyable walk round it in the evening. As we passed the market hall we were surprised to see people dancing in local costume accompanied by regional musical instruments including their variation of the bagpipes.

Thursday 18th July
Leaving Murat in the morning we soon found ourselves driving on very minor roads through lovely green countryside (lots of walnut trees) and sandy coloured medieval towns. All very quaint. Mid morning we stopped at St. Flour to pick up some local information.  It looked a lovely town but we moved on with our next stop being Carennac.

 This was a beautiful medieval village. We walked around the chateau which displayed local information and then around the rest of the village. We had our lunch before we set off again and by now it was very hot and being in the van was uncomfortable.

We were still driving on very narrow roads and in parts it looked quite dangerous as the cliffs that run along the Dordogne hung over us. We carried on until we reached Sarlat – le - Caneda. 

This was a beautiful medieval town if overrun with tourists and restaurants. Here we again picked up a lot of information from the Tourist information office and this allowed us to plan our next couple of days. We headed off to La Roque-Gageac where we parked in a very pleasant aire on the riverside. There is a lot of boat activity here with a huge number of canoes being launched from here as well as the traditional boats known as ‘gabarre’. However the river had a very strong flow and despite the number of canoists we did not see a single one paddling upstream so we decided not to put our kayak on the river as logistically it would have been difficult to get back to the van.



Friday 19th July
The day started with an atmospheric mist rising by the river but it was clear it was going to be another very hot day. Jacqui went off to buy bread and croissants and also stopped off at the market to buy some fresh fruit and salad.


After breakfast we cycled to Domme a village listed as one of the 150 ‘most beautiful villages’ in France. We are not sure how many of these we have seen but we are ticking them off at a good rate. This one lived up to its name.  It was only 5.5km away but with a steep climb up to this hill top town which in temps in excess of 30C left Jacqui red faced. Mike just got the camera out! It was a busy town. We were in the heart of gastronomic France and there were lots of shops selling foie gras and other pates as well as truffle products and walnut oil goods. It amazed me that you could go to the geese farms and see the geese being force fed. Some stated in a traditional non stressful manner. I cant understand this as force feed surely means exactly that!  Domme had some lovely buildings but the view over the Dordogne plain was spectacular. Once we had seen all we wanted we enjoyed the downhill cycle back to the van where we had lunch sitting by the river.

In the afternoon we got on the bikes again and cycled another 5km in the opposite direction to chateau at Castelnaud.  Of course, it was on top of a hill again! Here we had a very interesting guided tour where the history of the castle and middle age warfare was explained to us. It was now about 6pm and temperatures were still in the high 30s but we had one more place to visit. Back over the river we went up another hill to the Marqueyssac gardens another 3km away. The gardens were interesting for the mass of box topiary bushes and  stunning views over the valley.


Still hot we cycled back to the van past the fields of sunflowers for a well earned drink and supper.


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