EXPLORING THE ROLLING HILLS, CHATEAUX AND PREHISTORIC CAVES OF DORDOGNE

by YouShouldGoHere
April 22, 2016
in Go Here
0

[DORDOGNE & PERIGORD, FRANCE] — It has been since high school I’ve wanted to see this exact spot. Madame Zemkuznekov’s High School French Class, to be exact.

She was super hot, no doubt made hotter because she was probably the first non-nun (or non-former-nun) teacher we had. And in an all-boys school, at that. She had us all at “Bonjour” (and the sexy way she wore linen). Her French class was the only class in school that was absolutely pin-quiet. All 44 of us big-nosed and pimpled boys rapt with attention, hanging on every Imparfait thing she’d say, because she was… plus-perfect.

Anyway, back to the video below. It started out as a picture in our French text book, a prominent chapter page, I think. I didn’t pay that much attention to the other textbook photos — of Paris newspaper stands, or the goofy cool Citroëns, or toothless farmers in their blue berets.

It was this chateau that had me daydreaming, everyday, to find out where this was and come here one day. And so that’s why I was here. In the Périgord. Or Dordogne… still a little fuzzy on which is which, because they are often used interchangeable.

Been to Paris a dozen times, the Cote d’Azur and Provence about as much. But never had a chance to come here, these lush green valleys and lazy dark rivers. Found out this is actually a hotel, one of the fanciest in France, which made me giddy to stay in something so memorable and cool. Tried to book, but they were long bedded-up. But it was just as good to have a picnic across the way. Staring and chewing, silently practicing the tenses in my head.. all these years later. And yet still today, none of it sticks…😩

Driving out of Moltig-les-Bains in the southwest of France, you hook a left at Perpignan and boogie north. Perpignan is kinda the big toe of France and has just the cutest, swooning-sounding name when French women say it. They kinda whisper it.😳

We’re heading North… on the interior of the Bordeaux coast where the rivers run smooth and black, the truffles grow like kids and cavemen lived in… caves…

You don’t read much about Dordogne in the U.S. travel press. But the French know about it, almost keep it all to themselves. But the British found it long ago, in fact, this was one of the great battlegrounds of the Hundred Year’s War between the nobles of France and England. Now wealthy Brits have snapped up a lot of the incredible houses and chateaus.

But I just want to give you a taste of what it looks, feels and tastes like. I was on a random two-month drive through France, seeking out long-remembered places I’ve always seen (often in my French texts) but never had a chance to visit. Click on a pick below and you can follow along. More resources at the bottom.

: Driving up from the South, you pass right by the fairytale castle town of Carcassonne at its beasty Cité. You should stop here. It’s a UNESCO site and cool, but crowded. I think that between this and Neuschwanstein, all fairytale tellers used those two as their castle role models. _______________ Do not make the same mistake I did and pass by the dreamy gorgeous countryside hotel of Camellas Lloret. I didn’t even know that pretty hotel existed at the time, which is killing me now, as I unknowingly drove by it about six times last summer… looking for cool places to stay… Doh! It’s right outside of town, in Montréal (THIS Montréal, not the other ones.) Looking at pictures of that place, it looks like a spread in Maisons Côté Ouest, (Sud, even!) but you can stay there. Man, sitting in that pretty courtyard and having a woman whisper Perpignan in my ear would just.be.the.cat’s.meow.. 🙀 Okay, moving on. We have tolls to pay….

: Let’s go north to the town of Brantôme, which you should also go to. It’s cool. Brantôme is a sleepy little village in Perigord, about 40mins north of where we’ll be poking around. A gorgeous little town originally built on an island, surrounded on all sides by the calm rolling waters of the river Dronne — which is why it’s called Venice of the Perigord. It has all the water of Venice, but cleaner, cheaper, fewer boats and even fewer tourists. This town is old, originally settled around an old abbey founded by Charlemagne in the way back of 769 (!). In fact, one of the four old pilgrimage routes in France that fed into to the Santiago de Compostela, the Via Lemovicensis, runs right through Brantôme, so people have been traipsing through here for thousands of years in search of food and a good place to rest their head… which is why we are here, too. It’s a great central base to stay, mostly because of a killer hotel here that I highlight in another post.

: Rocamadour is cool, known worldwide for its bitey goat cheese, I can’t believe I haven’t seen more snaps of this pretty cliff church before. Clinging high on a cliff like a one-year-old on the edge of the sofa — you feel like One when you hang out over the scary church ramparts, staring down the steep valley below 😁 as you’ll soon see…

: Rocamadour is cool, known worldwide for its bitey goat cheese, I can’t believe I haven’t seen more snaps of this pretty cliff church before. Clinging high on a cliff like a one-year-old on the edge of the sofa — you feel like One when you hang out over the scary church ramparts, staring down the steep valley below 😁, as you’ll soon see…

: See what I mean?

: Anywhere you move along this great valley, the chateau looks better and better

: Here’s what they were looking at…

: Beautiful little Martel, like the Cognac, nestled into the cliffs.

: The Dore river, one of the feeders into the Dordogne

: After you visit Rocamadour, look for the road nearby that takes your through the cute village of Lacave. A beautiful little valley, with chateaus on the hilltops, canoes in the water and food to eat.

: This one’s good…

: It has been since high school I’ve wanted to see this exact spot. Madame Zemkuznekov’s High School French Class, to be exact. She was super hot, no doubt made hotter because she was probably the first non-nun (or non-former-nun) teacher we had. And in an all-boys school, at that. She had us all at “Bonjour” (and the way she wore linen). Her French class was the only class in school that was absolutely pin-quiet. All 44 of us big-nosed and pimpled boys rapt with attention, hanging on every Imparfait thing she’d say, because she was… plus-perfect. Anyway, back to the picture. It was in our French text book, a prominent chapter page. I didn’t pay that much attention to the other textbook photos, of Paris newspaper stands, or the goofy cool Citroëns, or toothless farmers in their blue berets. It was this chateau that had me daydreaming, everyday, to find out where this was and come here one day. And so that’s why I was here. In the Périgord. Or Dordogne… still a little fuzzy on which is which. Been to Paris a dozen times, the Cote d’Azur and Provence about as much. But never had a chance to come here, these lush green valleys and lazy dark rivers. Found out this is actually a hotel now, one of the fanciest in France, which made me giddy to stay in something so memorable and cool. Tried to book, but they were long bedded-up. But it was just as good to have a picnic across the way. Staring and chewing, silently practicing the tenses in my head.. all these years later. And yet still today, none of it sticks…😩

: Well, this was certainly a respectable “lunch”. Another day I was driving up and down the hills and valleys of Dordogne, I ducked under the motorway to the Lot region across the way. Trumbled into the small town of Lacave. A tranquil little village surrounded by great limestone cliffs, cut by the meandering Dore river, nearly every hilltop topped with baronial chateaux. It was late afternoon and I was hangry. 👹 Must. Eat. Now. Found a frayed little roadside restaurant along the river called La Garriote, right where they put canoes in the river. Not your typically pretty French countryside place like the last one, more plastic tables and free umbrellas, but they were cooking with fire, so always a good sign. Ordered a brochette de boeuf and BAM. Hahaha. Good lord. That’s a lot.. in Lot. (padum-pum). Especially for only 15e.

: Across the auto away from Dordogne is the province of Lot. Unbeknownst to me before I got there, Lot and Dordogne are known for their caves and cavemen. Here this whole time I thought it was about rivers and chateaux and truffles… Turns out, this was one of the great cradles of civilization, with cavemen eating just like that lunch I had. Meat, cooked with fire. We all read about the cave paintings of Lascaux when we were kids, but I thought it was just one cave. Even my favorite Wim Wenders 3D movie about Lascaux made it seem it was just an isolated handprinty playdate thing long ago. Turns out, you can’t swing a cat without hitting a cave around here. This place is chalk-full of caves, carved out by wind and water from the chalky cliffs. (I think this must be where they came up with that term — the chalk-full one, not the cat-swinging, that’s from Missouri…) The Gouffre de Padirac is a great yawn in the earth plunging 103m (330ft) down to a vast underground river system and tunnels that run 40km. You can take a Jules Verne-like elevator down and then boats deep into the caves, with comic gondoliers. They’ve been doing this since the 1890s, they got it Down.

: Getting down to the cave entrance is almost as good as being inside the caves at Padirac. You feel all Indiana Jones. But it really was pretty cool, riding a boat on a river way under ground. Ducking to get through some tunnels, opening up into huge caverns the size of Gare du Nord in the next. I came hoping for some cool pictures of the caves and boats traveling on a river underground. “Attention! Monsieur! Monsieur! Ttttt-tttt-tttt!” I got yelled at in three languages for taking a flash-less, silent shutter picture inside. “For the preservation.” Which was funny since they run 400,000 sweaty humans annually through this natural dewy Phantom of the Opera experience. It wasn’t until the end, after some kid popped a huge flash from behind a rock and our pale white faces showed up on a monitor that I realized le preservation was really about selling you a bad photo of you with a bunch of stunned strangers from Lyon. 😵👻🙀 Too bad, I really wanted to show you how beautiful these caves were. This will be the end of our tour. It’s Caveman Logic, really, the calculation of better selling you a single bad 10e picture vs allowing a photos that would entice 10,000 more people to visit and pay 25e. Do the math. Go there, it’s cool, just bring a hidey GoPro.

: This was the only pic I got of the inside, right before the guide shouted “Monsieur, monsieur! Tstch-tstch-tstch. No photos!”

: Highly recommend you just make a tour along the Vézère River. Gorgeous chateaux and dozens of prehistoric cave dwellings to explore. Some call this the Cradle of Civilization in Europe. Lots of prehistoric sites and campy caveman stuff to see all along here. There are so many that this is declared a UNESCO Heritage Site. Always a good sign of cool stuff.

: Saint-Leon-sur-Vézère is a cute little quiet town tucked in a very peaceful bend in the Vézère River. If you haven’t spent much in France, there’s an awesome designation called Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (The Most Beautiful Villages). Whenever you see that sign off the road, slam on the brakes and pull over because there’s a 99.3% certainty it’s gonna be good. Saint-Leon is one of those… and that’s exactly how I found it. I think my skid marks are still in the middle of the road. It’s in Mint Condition, mostly pedestrian, a few hundred residents, great houses and flowered streets. No t-shirt shops or anything unsightly. And as @geukensdevil said, well, wrote, in my last post, this place is unforgettable. Perfect. That previous post was right behind that tower. So I guess you could say: this is the village behind the sandwich shack behind the pâté behind the chairs behind the river. Pheeewwww. This could go on.. And that’s why people stop here, just to take a stroll around, grab a lunch and watch the river go by.

: Where I grew up, the rivers were full of downed trees, spider webs that get caught in your hair, old washing machines and sunken tires; nests of water moccasin snakes that will bite you ’til you’re dead.🕷🐍🐉😵💀 Not here. Just like the rest of France, it’s perfect. In the Dordogne it’s all about the rivers in this amply watered area, and which valley you’re in. The Vézère, the Garonne, La Dronne, the Dordogne.. the list goes on. Gently flowing, postcard-perfect dark smooth rivers that have carved their way through the soft limestone cliffs for centuries. Passing by quaint farms and chateaus and a million towns that end in -ac. It’s a Forest Gump list of -ac towns: Montignac. Padirac. Rouffinac. Beynac-et-Cazenac… Stop me when I get to a million… They’re almost Disney-perfect imitation streams. But they’re the real deal. And not a Michelin in sight, except restaurants. Oodles of ways to play, canoe and even swim. Or just plant a picnic on the green banks and see what flows by.

: And this was the situation behind the pâté behind the chairs behind the lolling river. If you’re in Saint-Leon-Sur-Vézère stop at this delightful little picnic shack, right along the wet moving sidewalk of the Vézère. Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe. It’s self-service, grab your mess and find a picnic table in the sun and wait for something to happen. Or nothing to happen…

: So this is what was going on behind the chairs in the previous post. In one of the prettiest towns in The Dordogne. I may have over-ordered…

: How cute is this?

: This is the view from your picnic in Saint-Leon-Sur-Vézère. With swimmer and boaters riding by.

: I just fell in love this place. Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe. A one-woman show that just made me cry. So simple. So good. Made me so happy.

: If the founder of Instagram flew down from Heaven in his Gulfstream (the 650, not the V), hooked up wires to my brain and demanded “Show me your dream house!!” … this might be it…

: Where I grew up, the rivers were full of downed trees, spider webs that get caught in your hair, old washing machines and sunken tires; nests of water moccasin snakes that will bite you ’til you’re dead.🕷🐍🐉😵💀 Not here. Just like the rest of France, it’s perfect. In the Dordogne it’s all about the rivers in this amply watered area, and which valley you’re in. The Vézère, the Garonne, La Dronne, the Dordogne.. the list goes on. Gently flowing, postcard-perfect dark smooth rivers that have carved their way through the soft limestone cliffs for centuries. Passing by quaint farms and chateaus and a million towns that end in -ac. It’s a Forest Gump list of -ac towns: Montignac. Padirac. Rouffinac. Beynac-et-Cazenac… Stop me when I get to a million… They’re almost Disney-perfect imitation streams. But they’re the real deal. And not a Michelin in sight, except restaurants. Oodles of ways to play, canoe and even swim. Or just plant a picnic on the green banks and see what flows by.

: So here’s how Man came to be: All through Dordogne are hundreds of little grottoes and caves tucked in and under these massive chalky cliffs. There are 15 (!) UNESCO World Heritage-rated prehistoric caves in the Vézère valley alone, like Lascaux, painted with handprints, mean boars, horseys and such. And about the first successful application and appreciation of ochre as a nice wall color. (@butnodessert) The famille Cro-magnon — still thawing out from all that Ice — moved in first, looking for a warm hole in the wall. Told the estate agent “View nice, I take.” Soon, the bratty kids, in a huff, used rocks to divide their battlegrounds, parents thought that was smart, made walls and called it Home. Eventually, the Cros ran through their inheritance, moved to a caravan down the street and eventually died off…. (See next post >>>>>> )

: …. but over time, better and better generations of Man moved in and made improvements. “Our People” as Kim Philby would say with a snicker; with better manners and tools, good foreheads, less underbite and fewer ticks. Families like les Bergers and Paquets and other useful types moved in and really fixed up the place, added some rooms, redid the kitchen. Then families like the Fourniers moved in next door and built Doors for everybody and they called it a village. Over a few thousand years, the small hamlet thrived, using the painted caves to store potatoes, old furniture and hang some canards. But on a visit from Paris one day, the conniving son-in-law of one family — when his new bride said they should paint the cave, move in with the rents and make babies — said “We can’t paint, this is historic! We should sell tickets to this!” Thus, a cottage industry around cave tours was born. And still thrives today…

: History Lesson Time: As I mentioned before, the Dordogne valley was one of the first great cradles of civilization outside of Africa. All along the Vézère River valley are dozens of caves and prehistoric caveman sites, where apey guys lived for thousands of years in caves, caverns and natural cutouts like this in the chalky cliffs. High above the valley floor, safely hidden from below, protected from the marauding beasts and animalistic tourists who wanted them for dinner vs. the other way around. Some are mom & pop operations, in families for generations. Some are campy dinosaur parks that make kids squeal like pterodactyls. Still others, like La Roque Saint-Christophe, are just something to behold. Massive complexes over a kilometer long that lasted through the several human evolutions, from cavemen times to the Middle Ages, long before castles were invented. Imagine, over a thousand people lived in this big slit for hundreds of years. Self-contained cities hidden up here for no one else to see. I was like a little kid climbing all over this stuff, although I later felt how ancient I really am.

: History Lesson Time: As I mentioned before, the Dordogne valley was one of the first great cradles of civilization outside of Africa. All along the Vézère River valley are dozens of caves and prehistoric caveman sites, where apey guys lived for thousands of years in caves, caverns and natural cutouts like this in the chalky cliffs. High above the valley floor, safely hidden from below, protected from the marauding beasts and animalistic tourists who wanted them for dinner vs. the other way around. Some are mom & pop operations, in families for generations. Some are campy dinosaur parks that make kids squeal like pterodactyls. Still others, like La Roque, are just something to behold. Massive complexes that lasted through the several human evolutions, from cavemen times to the Middle Ages, long before castles were invented. Imagine, over a thousand people lived up here for hundreds of years, everything carved out of the soft rock walls. Self-contained cities with protected hidden entrances, hidden up here for no one else to see. I was like a little kid climbing all over this stuff, although I later felt how ancient I really am.

: When you see the site like the previous pics and try to envision the whole old settlement here, but when you see the scale model they have, it all makes much more sense.

: They used to pull up supplies from boats on the river right below the cliffside development.

: Just one awesome cave site after another, nestled in the crevasses of the soft limestone cliffs. I only had a couple of days here, so had to zoom by most of them. If I were you, I’d plan a week here. So much cool stuff to see.

: On the Michelin map, all this area really seems easy to get to, but actually, because of the hills and valley and rivers and two lane road, it does take a lot of time to get somewhere that seems somewhere close. If you base out of Brantôme, plane on an hour to get where you want south of the auto way. But staying at Le Moulin de l’Abbaye is worth all the time.