A mere taste of the Périgord

About two and a half hours north of Toulouse lies the little "ville ancienne" or "cité médiévale"of Sarlat La Canéda which was the inspiration for our trip north from Toulouse along the péage.

Ages ago, Pete and Liz Runting told me not to miss this charming Lygon-street-style village, and with Jan & Nossie staying a mere 20 minutes away, it was perfect timing for our visit. We booked the little 2 star Hotel Plaisance in Vitrac so we could stay for 2 full days in the area and when we arrived, we were pleasantly suprised by the size of our room, the renovated bathroom, the shaded courtyard bar and the gardens over the road.



Reception for Hotel Plaisance. The gardens over the road.

the "beer garden" for want of a better name!! (above) and our little room....

It even boasted a lovely swimming pool set amidst landscaped gardens some 100 metres away and we indulged in the late afternoon in a table tennis match which probably disturbed the slumbering guests but warmed us up and prepared us for our pre-dinner drinks. For 60 euros we thought this was good value.

Sarlat itself:

Wednesday and Saturdays are market days in Sarlat and these days are well worth the bumper to bumper traffic that snarles it's way into the "centre ville". While summer is not the best time to visit Sarlat if you want to find a park easily or prefer a quiet village experience, the crowds of holiday makers add a certain ambience and atmosphere to the city square!!

the crowds are elbow thick at mid morning...

This region of the Périgord is famous for it's Fois Gras, fresh walnuts and black truffles and the shops and market stalls positively dripped with examples of each in so many forms. Tins and jars and bottles of fois gras; sugared or roasted or salted walnuts; essence of truffle oil, balsamic truffle dressing or pieces of truffle floating in oil. These things were particularly plentiful in all the market stalls and shops, as were the pottery artifacts of cute but lethally bloated white geese lying in uncomfortably prostate positions. The force feeding of these poor animals is a cruel and unnecessarily barbaric practice in my view and on our travels we saw these huge geese lying on the ground or standing around their enclosure. "Huge" is not a realistic description: these geese were the size of a kitchen chair!! Needless to say, neither of us were inclined to purchase a tea towel or teabag holder or even an oven mitt in spite of their romantically cute paintings of white geese with ribbons around their necks. To do so would be hypocritical.

Thus ends my sermon.....

Sarlet La Canéda was much more than a market and it's shops, cute though they were. It is one of the most attractive of the medieval towns in France and certainly one of the best restored according to the Lonely Planet guide. It's monuments and buildings were miraculously saved by the MALRAUX Law on the restoration of historic towns and it was one of the first villages in the region to benefit. Sarlat is a fabulous example of well worked restoration and preservation.

some of the many photos of alleyways.....

There are many renaissance period houses built here using the Périgord's golden stone which is clearly visible in the photos above, and it was an absolute pleasure to wander through the narrow cobbled alley-ways with their tiny cafés or restaurants emerging from cul de sacs at every turn. When on holiday , the French love to sit outside in the sun , indulging in a late breakfast or a mid morning coffee and patisserie or an early lunch or merely a glass of wine. We naturally did the same!

one can spend a fortune indulging in food and drink over here, and it is so enticing...!!

Akin to the restoration of the bastide towns we saw previously like Cordes or Puycelci, Sarlat's architecture is predominantly medieval, renaissance and 17th century but it is known for having the highest concentration of authentic facades of any town in France. It's prosperity was apparently a reflection of the priveleged status it was granted in return for loyalty to the French Crown during the 100 years war. The ornamental detail on the buildings is fantastic,

and the town in its entirety has become a sort of open air museum. I had my mouth open and my camera popping for 4 hours! If anyone comes near this part of France, don't miss Sarlat!!

Karpatz, a fantastic group of 8 men who entertained the crowd. Gypsies or ...?? Fantastically skillful and doing the rounds of the Périogord area because we saw ads for them everywhere afterwards. We probably should have bought a CD...just for the memory! And for the toe-tapping music!

La Roque Gageac is just 4 kms the other side of our hotel in Vitrac and we stumbled on a magically clear and cloudless evening to have our dinner here. This is a fantastic site, nestled into the ancient striations of the sheer rock face beside the Dordogne River, and as we approached, we marvelled at the very narrow strip of real estate that has created such a visual feast of roof lines and angles and shapes.

the narrow strip of real estate wedged between the rock face and the river Dordogne

the roof angles and shapes highlighted against the rock

With the winding river by its side, full of canoes and tourist boats including the replica of the 18th century Gabare, this is another town full of photo opportunities.

the replica of the 18th century Gabare in full flight

Snaking up the almost vertical sides of the Dordogne valley edge are steps and ladders and ledges for intrepid explorers to climb and the sheer drop from some of the ledges is awe inspiring....as is the view!! We noticed an expanse of netting that covers large areas of the exposed rock, both to protect the lives of those below as well as to preserve the rock facia. But we did notice a large boulder monument commemorating the death of 3 people from a rockfall in 1957. As we ate our dinner on the terrace of our cute restaurant, we couldn't help but look upwards to the cliff face above. And contemplate....!!

Russ actually enjoying his walnut salad!!!

me enjoying a very indulgent dessert.

See mum? I do eat cream and sweets!!!

the sheer cliff face above us.... and
our restaurant from above with the river Dordogne in the background.....

Magic scenery, magic place.

The Périgord cont'd

The next day we met Jan and Nossie at Cenac-et-St Julien where their little historic gite (an old bakery) was situated. It was a delightful little 2 storey brick place with a fully equipped kitchen and an enormous wood fired stove...as one would presume for a bakery!! Stairs led up to their double bedroom but they were so steep one had to come down backwards and hang onto the rail!

Since they had been in the area for 5 days they led us, taking us first to Beynac-et-Cazenac, another small historic town on the edge of the Dordogne river.

Beynac-et-Cazenac centre ville

Not as steep a climb as Cordes, it still presented a challenge but there were lots of breathing spots interpreted as photo opportunities as we sighted the verdant green pastures of the valleys below.

As Jan said to a fellow climber, "Who wants their photo taken going up here? You can't smile while you're puffing so much, can you?!!" So we all agreed to wait until we were on the flats!

The top of the village was of course where the chateau or bishop's castle was, a fortress that starred as the backdrop for the movie 'Joan D'Arc' because of its authentic and largely intact form. We actually saw a lone tradesman painstakingly laying one stone at a time to restore a stone wall outside the chateau's walls. He was presumably continuing the long process of restoration that began here in 1996 and went until 2005 (according to a plaque we saw), a major thrust of renovation that we understand is funded 80% by the community and 20% by the region....but this is not hard fact, just something we read somewhere.

the bishop's chateau at the top of Beynac

Domme was the next place on the agenda, a bastide town that I had read about and really wanted to visit. Although Jan and Nossie had been there for dinner the night before, they were happy to take us back to their little restaurant overlooking the valley below so we could appreciate the fantastic views.

Thursday was market day for Domme and agains we had to fight for a park but we found the village centre alive with a huge variety of vendors, some of whom we had encountered at Sarlat the day before!! The sights and smells added to the charm of the centre ville.

Domme is perched high on a breath-taking cliff which affords the most fabulous vistas of the Pérogord or Dordogne countryside below.

As a stronghold this fortified bastide built in 1281 on such a rocky outcrop was virtually impregnable. This was the place where the knights templar were imprisoned during their trial in 1307 and one of the town's gates has preserved the traces of their inscriptions or ingravings. The town bell chimes loudly each and every hour over the market place and we were right underneath it at noon, staring skyward and utterly bewitched by the mechanical arm which swung the huge iron bell before any sound was emitted. But then it connected in a very,very powerful way and we had to move on!!

Our lunch was a light one and very pleasant, and of course we found yet another lovely waitress prepared to take a photo of our last meal together in La Belle France.

The Pérogord region is amazingly rich both visually and historically and we wished we had decided to start our exploration of it much earlier in our time in Touolouse. We didn't get to see the prehistoric caves of La Roque Sainte-Christiphe which Jan found fascinating; nor did we see Les Jardins de Marqueyssac with the 6 kms of walkways and its expanse of hand clipped hedges (150,000 separate box trees apparently!!) nor did we visit Rocamadour, one of the most imposing and impressive of the bastides.

Maybe this means there will have to be a next time?!! This part of the french countryside is just bursting with cultural, historic and purely visual delights but to do it justice one needs time to reflect on each excursion and not cram so much into a day or week that magnificent times get lost in a haze of memories.

We may have missed many superb parts of the Périgord-Languedoc region but we have had the very best opportunity to absorb and grow and learn from what we have seen and this will become a bench mark for future travel. We just count ourselves blessed to have had the chance to make the house-swap with Geraldine and Xavier, an opportunity we never anticipated nor considered. It has been truly wonderful.

Thanks Bev and Mike for the introduction!

As we head off to Singapore, Jan and Nossie head off to the Loire region for another week of exploring and thence to Paris for a week in the St Germaine des Près apartments we also stayed in. They have much to look forward to and to share. None of us will ever be the same....

A bit of background...

Pierre Paul Riquet was the creator of the 240 km Canal du Midi between Toulouse and Sète. Way back in the 1660's he had a dream of connecting the Garonne River in the north with a canal going through southern France to connect the Atlantic ocean and the Mediterranean.

Economically this would benefit trade, enabling a faster and safer route for goods than past the hostile Spain and the Barbary pirates. But the logistics of supplying the summit sections of the proposed canal with enough water created enormous problems including the building of a huge dam as well as the financing of the canal itself. The sheer size of the mission bankrupted Riquet who was 63 when he got the go-ahead for the canal, and he died in 1680 just before the canal was completed and officially opened. He gave 20 years of lis life to his dream and his sons and hiers, who inherited the canal, continued the mission although it took the family 100 years to overcome the debts Riquet had left. It cost 15 million livres and 2 million came from Riquet himself. At its peak, the work of creating the huge dam and the canal itself employed 12,000 labourers, 600 of which were women and it was acclaimed as a remarkable and enterprising feat of great magnitude and importance. It was built with oval shaped locks designed to stop the walls caving in (they were 6 metres wide at the gates and 11 metres wide at the centre) however the theory was not widely accepted nor followed in other French or European locks. But the locks have survived to this day!

If you are interested, check out this web site for some fabulous photos - much better than ours and for more information

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/le.forum/photos.html


For 250 years the canal lived up to its expectations but in the 1850's or thereabouts, it was bought out by the railways and gradually fell into disrepair. Trade languished in favour of the faster rail system and by the 1980's it was down to 10 boats a year. All water life ceased during the drought of 1989 and it wasn't until the 1990's that some enterprising tourism operators saw the potential of the canal for holiday makers. With its locks and viaducts and its tree lined edges, the canal now does a roaring trade between the 3rd Sunday in March and the first week of November when it closes for winter maintenance. In season it generates 122 million Euros from tourism and is the most popular of pleasure waterways in Europe!!



boats queuing to go through a tight fitting bridge...

A Plethora of Pleasure Boats:

We saw everything from tiny wooden floaties to Plastic-Fantastics of huge proportions; from gigantic Hotel-Barges to skinny Long Boats akin to those in the English canals. We saw boats that hadn't moved for years to boats that change hands after weekends to boats that are rented for the whole summer season.







A privately owned hotel boat made into a home...

These Plastic Fantastics had me fascinated with their bow thrusters and dual throttles that enabled them to squeeze into the really short mooring spaces with minimal effort. Nossie and I saw one complete a full circle on what could have been a 5 cent piece!!

At Capastang, this Swiss gentleman let us moor onto his Plastic Fantastic so we could access water to fill our 700 litre tank. We weren't sure how much water was left and were scared of burning out the motor but not one boat was about to move away to let us have room. We waited over 2

hours and then decided to do a double park, hoping no other boat needed to pass us by!!

size doesn't matter, as long as one has space for bicycles!!




Has anyone not noticed our Aussie flag in all the photos of our boat? If not, here it is!!

Our boat did about 5 kph per hour which was relatively slow and chuggy in comparison to some of the Plastic-Fantastics which chewed up the miles and left huge washes in their wake which pummelled the banks of the canal. This is expressly NOT encouraged because the canal walls are extremely fragile and 8 knots per hour is the official speed limit. Not all the boats broke the speed limit but ours certainly couldn't!! And this is why it was so relaxing. Russell loved to leave the steering in the capable hands of Jan or Nossie and sit on the bow at the waters edge, away from the noise of the engine letting the gentle sway lull him into a state of peace. This was what he loved most about canal life: the quietness, the sound of water brushing the edges of the boat and the sound of the wind on the trees. He says it reminded him of when he used to row at college on the Barwon River.

One of the many hotel boats we passed...

The Hotel barges we saw were bedecked with pot plants of all shapes and sizes, deck chairs and tables and bars and umbrellas and merely 2 or 3 very relaxed customers who smiled benignly down on us, too lazy to raise an arm to wave as did other vessels. It was just too relaxing!





You can see the edge of our boat as I took this shot..


These large hotel barges were enormous and pushed us to the extreme sides of the canal because their keel needed to be at the centre of the canal at it's deepest spot. The overhanging branches of the plane trees , while picturesque, had us ducking our heads, closing the windows downstairs so we did not fill the cabin with leaves and grabbing anything that was sitting on the table. (Nossie was renowned for his tree trimming ability!) Some of these older barges had been converted into mobile homes and we saw one couple on their 100-year-old restaurant boat that they had bought for 200,000 euros ( see below) learning to navigate around sharp bends in the canal. At over 100 feet in length, corners and sludgy edges aren't easy and this boat got stuck and the boats behind it had to back up while it it manoevered out of trouble. Very cumbersome, but what a life!





The 100 year old restaurant boat:
We saw only a young couple on board this huge boat and the woman was learning to drive this monstrosity with a steering wheel and gears that took her whole body weight to shift!! I was transfixed!! This is the one that got stuck in the mud right opposite where we were moored for the night at La Croisade. You can just see the boats behind it keeping their distance!!




Pam and Nick at La Croisade talking to Russ and Nossie



On that same night we saw the old restaurant boat, we moored at the tiniest of villages called La Croisade and met up with an English couple Pam and Nick, who own and have renovated this single bedroom home-away-from-home(above). They also own a house a mere 15 minutes away by car but choose to live on their canal boat for the summer and rent out their town house for income. In the winter months, Nick completes more renovations and then they sell the boat and buy another to fix up. This is their third or fourth boat I think. Over some wonderful Spanish whisky they shared with the boys, they chatted and gave us a tour of their handiwork. Nick also gave Russ some valuable clues as to how best to swing the tail of our cumbersome boat back into the bank with a minimum of fuss.

Life off the boat....

We did not spend 15 hours of each day travelling, but rather motored for about 4 or 5 hours and then tied up and explored a town or village before deciding whether or not to continue. On one morning Jan I really wanted to get to Capastang for a market where we found the most delightful little square full of sausage sizzles, charcuteries, cheese, fruit and vegie stalls and bric a brac being sold.

Capastang Market on a Wednesday

As we sat down for a chantilly coffee (expresso coffee with a mountain of cream on top which the french say approximates a "cappuccino"), a couple of young women with an accordian and a clarinet started playing the most wonderful jazz. Then a little child, obviously a son, got up to accompany them on a tambourine;




then another daughter got up to play the violin and then Dad joined in with his violin. It was just fantastic and had the locals dancing and clapping and of course donating money into the strategically placed hat!!



Nossie thought they looked a bit like a travelling family of gypsies and they could have been but what talent they displayed. It just made our day.


The town of Capastang has a huge church and a 13th century chateau and we thought it was cute enough to come back to on our return journey. Jan wanted to explore the back streets more thoroughly and in the twilight we took the most interesting photos of the big church lit up against a deep cerulean coloured sky.




the church at Capastang.


Life at the end of the day also included a spot of hard bicycle riding at times, or a browse through the streets one side or another of the usual bridge that spanned the canal at each village, or a cool drink at a café or restaurant where we often met and chatted to other travellers. The canal is certainly cosmopolitan with French, English, German, Swiss, Spanish and Italian visitors as well as the occasional Aussie like us. We met Brigitte , a 22 year old student, who had come to France for her Uni holidays to experience and practise different languages as a waitress in Homps. She is fluent in German, English, French, Italian and is trying to learn Japanese too. She and Jan had a lovely time chatting and of course we all gave her an excellent tip at the end of each round of drinks!!

Brigette, waitress at La Péniche in Homps

Prawns for entrée at La Péniche , Homps (above) and drinks at Argens-Minervois with

a toast to a great Canal du Midi trip (below)

Our last night at Le Somail at L'O à la Bouche restaurant where Russ has his second huge bowl of mussels for the week!!