Europe Travels – 24 Aug – 1 Sep

Friday we left Bordeaux toward the Dordogne River Valley. Our first stop was St.-Emillion, a delightful medieval town, built typically on a hillside. From the parking area we entered an ancient abbey and cloisters with time worn walls, statues and columns, and when we exited on the other end, we found ourselves in a beautiful square overlooking the old town “spilling” down the steep slopes to another square below, and incredible green lush views of the surrounding valley and vineyards and blue horizon. (like “Via Rodeo, Beverly Hills J in spades!!!) There were quaint, narrow twisting streets, cafes fancy wine shops and macaroon “factories”. The vineyards had bunches of ripe purple grapes that looked gorgeous next to bright green grape leaves. After lunch we continued to St. Cyprien along the Dordogne River, on country roads, and arrived at our rented apartment, “Le Rochre Rouge”, an old farm house, originally built to house the staff of the old “Chateau de la Roque” on the cliff above.

A few words of background of about the Dordogne River Valley and the Perigord Noir region: Remember the stories and fairy tales we read about “Once upon a time” kings, knights in shining armor, castles etc??? Well, it seems this was where they all lived!!! And I really never believed they could be true!!! Perigord is a rural area of rolling hills covered with farms and forests. Endless fields of corn, tobacco walnut orchards, and sunflowers, which, sadly, had dried and bowed their heads at the end of summer. The region is dominated by limestone cliffs along the river valleys with many caves and caverns which turned out to be comfortable dwellings for prehistoric humans... It has been inhabited for over 100,000 years (!!!!) and abounds with prehistoric artifacts and many caves with drawing and paintings from prehistoric times dating back 18,000 years or more. There are some Roman ruins and many towns dating back to the Middle Ages (900-1600AD). The region experienced deadly plagues, hundreds of years of horrible wars, the Wars of Religion and the Hundred Years War with England. The hillsides and cliffs are dotted with many defensive chateaux (castles) built during this period. The villages look little changed in these past centuries. Ancient stone houses, owned for generations by the same family, line narrow cobble stoned alleys clustered around imposing ancient stone churches and gigantic castles with towers and ramparts. You tread on these stones and feel as if you just stepped back in time, into the pages of these old storybooks. The local cuisine is dangerously wonderful. One of the specialties is Foie Gras, which is basically fluffed up fat from the livers of over-fed geese that have been force fed at local farms (with funnels down their throats..gag…) to fatten their liver. (Yeah, it sounds disgusting but it tastes heavenly on slices of a fresh baguette!). Add to that wine and cheeses and walnut pies and great fruits and vegetables and you get the picture!! Luckily, having a kitchen we only eat out once a day.

Outdoor markets are big in France and particularly in the Perigord. There is a market day of the week at a different village. Saturday was market day in Sarlat, the largest town in this area and on market day the whole center of town becomes one gigantic market, in the square, the streets and the joining alleys. The sights, smells, colors and tastes of the market were intoxicating!! Fruits, veggies, cheeses, pates, sausages, spices, fresh breads and pastries, beautiful tablecloths with local prints, and of course the usual made in China and Africa trinkets you find in every market these days. Sarlat itself is also ancient and quaint and with endless Gothic style decorated buildings and cute alleys better seen than described. (See photos) After the market we drove to Chateau Castlenaud, a very imposing castle, high on a cliff above the river and surrounded by a little medieval village. The castle has been restored extensively and houses a museum of medieval castle life and war. We climbed endless steps up a spiral stone staircase in the towers. Saw the ramparts and watched several videos and displays that really brought to life what it was like to be a knight living in those days. It did not look like much fun wearing all this armor and having to defend your castles with all kinds of projectiles and catapults. Later that evening we had dinner at a café overlooking the even more imposing Chateau Beynac, across the river from the Castelnaud. We sampled confit de canard (duck cooked in its own fat) and were not that impressed (luckily!!)

Sunday was market day at our little town St-Cyprien, just ten minutes from our place. This was another cultural experience with huge mobs of people, amazing food and spices and even an organ grinder complete with monkey. We got some goodies for lunch and since it was a very hot day we decided on canoe trip down Dordogne River. We rent our canoe and pushed off and joined hundreds of other people floating down the rapidly moving current. After first crashing into the pier of a bridge we had a wonderful, relaxed trip through forests fields, castles and ancient villages. There were even stops along the way where you could get drinks and ice cream. After about two and a half hours we pulled into our destination, had a coffee and got the bus back to our car. It was a perfect cool way to spend a hot afternoon.

On Monday (27 August) we decided to take a driving tour recommended by Michelin Guide. We stopped at several small villages which are said to be among the prettiest in France, and then went to Gouffre de Padirac, a deep (300 ft!) hole in the ground that leads to an underground cavern. We took the 500 steps down and then went through a cavern with an underground river and filled with stalagmites, stalactites and flowing formations of limestone. After a long walk along the underground river we got in little boats that took us further into the cavern to an enormous “domed” room filled with waterfalls and more strange limestone formations. There were another 150 stairs that took us to the top of the room so that we could get a closer view of the various formations and water features. We chose to take the elevator back to the surface, whew!!! It was an incredible experience! On the way back we visited Rocamadour, an ancient pilgrimage site, where it is believed several miracles occurred. As a result, several chapels were built on a super high cliff above the river. Pilgrims traveled hundreds of miles to prey for salvation and some would climb up these endless stairs to the cave with their bodies draped in chains to redeem their sins. There were as many as 30,000 per day on some occasions. A small wooden statuette, called the Black Madonna and a church bell seems to be the holiest relic here which survived the centuries. The site itself is quite impressive even today, with the medieval town below, the church on the cliff above and a large castle above that. All this is stacked up like a layered wedding cake on the steep cliffs.
Luckily there were escalators and a funicular to take us to the top. (Since we did not do anything bad.)

Tuesday started our prehistoric explorations. We went to see the Lascaux II cave which is covered with large beautiful color paintings done by cavemen (Cro Magnon) some18, 000 years ago. The cave is a reproduction of the original cave discovered in 1940. The original is nearby and has been closed to the public since there was so much traffic in it by tourists that fungus introduced by human presence was beginning to cause deterioration of the paintings. Lascaux II faithfully reproduces about 90% of the original. The paintings, high on the walls of the cave and on the ceilings, are of bison, reindeer, horses and mammoths, probably the animals these people hunted. Since they were sealed in a dark dry cave after the entrance to it collapsed, the paintings were incredibly well preserved. The shapes are gorgeous and expressive, and not entirely realistic in proportions. The colors are blacks, reds and oranges, the earth pigments available to them then, with amazing shading and shadowing to show shape. In many cases they are three dimensional following the natural contours of the stone walls to emphasize the shape of the animal. It is mind boggling to realize that humans of 20,000 were able to conceive and execute such an incredible set of paintings. After leaving Lascaux we continued our prehistoric touring to a place called la Roque Saint-Christophe, another set of cave and cliff dwellings that had been occupied continuously up to the end of the 16th century. It consists of a deep indentation in the cliff about 300 feet above the river and is about one-half mile long. There are about 100 caves and houses (actually fronts of houses since the back wall was the cliff) built into this cliff niche The buildings and cave included a church, blacksmith shop, butcher and smoke houses and a protective castle. At one time 1,500 people lived in this little cliff village. It was an amazing sight

The next day we went to the National Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies, about ten minutes from our apartment. (Cro-Magnon was the name of a cave at Les Eyzies.) This was another fascinating place. It is housed in a modern building with the cliff as a back wall. The cliff is much like the one we visited the day before at Saint-Christophe and here too were caves with squared openings, cliff dwellings and a chateau built into the cliff. The museum houses a large collection of prehistoric artifacts from the Dordogne area including a very large collection of stone tools from different periods, prehistoric jewelry, lamps and hearths, in addition to skeletons and life-like reconstructions of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon cavemen found in the area. Fascinating!!. From here we went to Domme, another quaint and lovely medieval town not far away. The views of the valleys below were lovely even in the drizzly afternoon

Thursday we went to the Grotte de Font-de-Gaume to see a real life cave with Cro-Magnon color paintings. This is one of only two caves with color paintings in the world that is open to the public (the other being in northern Spain). Although these paintings were not as bright or large as the Lascaux paintings, it was a very moving experience to see the actual wall paintings and the way the cavemen took advantage of the shapes of the wall to portray the animals. It was a beautiful day so we went to see the Jardin de Marqueyssec, a huge garden of a chateau on top of a mesa with cliffs going down to the Dordogne River. The walk through the garden was probably a mile long with spectacular views of the surrounding Dordogne countryside and chateaux, the river and towns along the river.

Friday our last day in the Dordogne valley we went to the Jardins d’Eyrignac, the formal gardens of a mansion laid out over 200 years ago. Very pretty with formally trimmed hedges and lawns, but we decided we like the Huntington Gardens in California much better. We felt that fi we steped on the grass the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland would come out and say "Off with ther heads". Finally, we spent the rest of the afternoon in Sarlat having lunch, sightseeing and shopping. What a delightful place!

Saturday, 1 September we traveled six hours northwest to reach Nantes, our next house exchange. We arrived here late afternoon and settled into this lovely house with all the comforts of home, including wireless Internet.