Dordogne in the Sunshine

On Saturday morning we picked up a car from Gare du Nord in Paris and headed south to the Dordogne region in south west France.
The Dordogne is for many people is the picture-perfect image of the French countryside, a gentle landscape of patchwork fields, hilltop towns, turreted mansions and jade-green woods. Named after the most important of the region’s seven rivers, the Dordogne is better-known to the French as Périgord, spiritual home to two of the country’s enduring culinary passions – foie gras and the black truffle. The Dordogne is famous for its stunning cave paintings, as well as for its many fortified chateaux and bastide towns – reminders of the bloody battles waged here during the Middle Ages and the Hundred Years’ War.

We have stayed here many times before with Simon’s family and with friends in a house on the river near the villages of Couze and Lalinde. The walls are thick limestone which keeps the house cool in summer and COOL in winter. When we arrived the thermostat said 6C! After turning on the heating we were able to feel our toes again and the children were greatful for their hot water bottles they were given for Christmas in Canada.

Our first day we just spend in the area, walked across the bridge to Couze and had lunch. There was a piano in the restaurant so the children had their first piano practice of the holiday. We then went for a stroll around the town.

The next day we went for a drive to the town of Beynac-et-Cazenac on the banks of the Dordogne. It boasts an imposing castle, once besieged by Richard the Lion Heart, around which stone slab-roofed houses with their creamy façades are built.

After lunch we went to Les jardins de Marqueyssac (The gardens of Marqueyssac) which sit on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Dordogne River. They consist of over six kilometres of shaded alleys, edged by 150,000 hand-pruned, box hedges. Spectacular!

The nearby village of Mauzac was where we started a walk around the countryside. There has been a lot of rain on this size of the world and there were a few mud puddles to walk through. We saw some cute little French houses along the way and the bridge across the river is picture perfect!