My Other House is in France: A holiday in a holiday.

It is now Saturday morning and things are getting back to normal. Or as normal as our new normal can be. We just got back from a quick 5 day break to southern parts of France. We rented a car from the local grocery store for a week, packed our bags, and headed off south. Our plans were to stop into two picturesque villages in the most southern part of Limosin as featured in a travel magazine we purchased back in March, canoe along the Dordonge River, and see Carcassonne. We have learnt from experience not to plan too many villages into one day.

Collonges-Rouge

Our first destination was Collonges-Rouge. The village is famous for its red sandstone bricks. These come from the exposed Meyssac fault that you can visit just down the road. This is the only place in France that you will see these bricks. The red colour comes from the composition of 2% iron oxide. They have made the village into a tourist attraction, but even with restaurants and gift stores, the hillside village is still a magnificent visit. It was a free city and this gave it many privileges such as not paying taxes to the King. The renowned wine was one of the sources of the wealth which was used to build houses, castles and mansions with ornate architectural details with the famous red sandstone. It is a car free village, which makes for a very leisurely stroll.

Collonges-Rouge

Cesar Tower in the Château de Turenne

Just a few kilometres down the road is the village of Turenne. This was the centre of the Vicomte of Turenne of which Collonges-Rouges was a city in. At the top of the hill are the remnants of the Château de Turenne. It was a climb of 130 steps just to get to the main entrance from the base. This doesn't include the climb from the parking lot up through the village to the base of the château. The buildings that remain of the château include the Keep/Clock Tower, and the Treasury Tower, where money for the Vicomte was minted. The main buildings were destroyed in 1738 by King Louis XV who had bought the château to pay for the last Viscount's gambling debts. It has been replaced by a French Garden. Across the garden still stands the Tour de Cesar, an 11th century watch tower. I climbed the 64 uneven steps to take in the spectacular view from the top. For centuries the Viscounts of Turenne commanded much of what I could see from the top. Steve escaped to an ombragè spot to enjoy the gardens.

Both of these villages are on "Les Plus Beaux Villages de France". This is a list that I'm sure would take a lifetime to visit and there are many more villages that are worth a visit that are not on the list, but one can only see so much. We headed back to the car for a short drive to our Chambre d'Hôte for the evening. After being welcomed at La Masion de Tari by Martine, it wasn't long before we had changed and were enjoying a cool dip in la piscine. It was a great way to wind down after a busy day of sightseeing and driving.

La Masion de Tari was in a very rural area, and we needed to head out to find dinner. We had pizza on our mind, so off we went to find an Italian dinner in France. Google maps had located a few nearby and I thought it would be no trouble finding them. Well things went wrong with our virage à droite au lieu de gauche (a right turn instead of a left turn).This took us to the town of Sarlat. We did find a grocery store to load up on snacks and lunch for tomorrow's canoe trip. We divided and conquered the store, as it was closing time. I was holding a bottle of wine when I ran back into Steve at the check outs, who had one of the bags of wine. What was I thinking? one bottle of 75 cl or 3 l of wine. After stocking up, we recommenced our quest for pizza. The town of Sarlat was just up the road, but we quickly realized that something must be happening in town, as the traffic was very slow, and all the parking was complet. We drove once around drooling at the sight of perfectly good restaurants and then headed south to where were were to be originally. We let our GPS lead us to a pizza place in the village of Domme. We didn't realized that the village was a very historic hill top village and car-free as well. Our quest for our holy grail wasn't going well and being hungry, nerves were a bit raw. After driving along the one road through town, we found our way down out of the village. Just as we arrived at the base of the village, there appeared out of the mist a restaurant with a terrasse, a welcoming atmosphere, and most important, easy parking. It didn't take a long read of the menu to get a table for two. Well we didn't find our holy grail of pizza, we did find a restaurant with a varied menu with French foods. It was a great meal, I had the duck and Steve had the cod, with very nice service, so good that we went back the second night to try the veal and the hamburger. After dinner, our drive back to the B & B was only about 15 minutes instead of the 90 minute tour to get here. Alls well that ends well, so we ended the evening by enjoying a night cap on the terrasse outside our room (thanks to the bag of wine) and then to bed for a good night's sleep before our canoeing adventure of the next day.

Tuesday morning we enjoyed a continental breakfast at our hotel, and then off to our day on the river. In planning our day, I was overwhelmed with the choice of canoe rental companies. I trusted the Trip Advisor award, and picked Explorando Canoes in Grolejac. We reserved a canoe for two for the day. The way it works is you park, get your canoe, pick how far you want to go, and then they will shuttle you back to your car at the end of the day. The River Dordogne was a slowly flowing river interspersed with some little rapids. It winds itself past cliffs, ancient châteaux and villages. Our trip was 17 kms from Grolejac to La Roque Gageac with an estimated time of 3.5 hours. We took about just about 4.5 hours which included coming ashore in a shady spot on the shore for lunch. As we drifted down the river, we were able to drop our feet overboard to keep cool. We arrived in La Roque Gageac about 30 minutes before our bus was scheduled to take us back to the car. We spent the extra time wading in the river trying to keep cool. The bus ride back was reminicent of our trip in Peru. A large bus on winding narrow roads and bridges, which in parts were high above the river valley but this on trip there were only other cars and buses attempting to share the road but no donkeys to avoid. Again arriving back at the inn, we were quickly changed and into the pool.

Dinner was back at the same restaurant, sometimes you need a bit of easy. It was another great dinner. Back at the hotel, the night cap was much shorter, as we were exhausted from our hard day on the river. It's a good thing we were not in Simon Fraser or David Thompson's expeditions, as British Columbia might not yet be discovered.