Les Jardins de Marqueyssac – Fortunately today we had a day away from La Treille and visited this magnificent garden.  It was a bit of a jaunt from La Treille at approximately 100km (or 1.5 hours drive) south near Sarlat.  It was well worth the visit in my opinion and I would recommend it.  It was quite a hot day with temperatures hovering around the 28 degrees C but the garden walks were lovely and shady.

Box hedges line the shady walks

We took Ruben as dogs are allowed as long as they are on a lead.  Some of the paths were quite steep and there were also many view points along the walk that had magnificent views across the Valley looking down and across the Dordogne River.

View from the Garden walks

The gardens are well planned out with plenty of benches, well designed children’s play area’s (that blend in with the gardens), toilets, picnic area’s as well as the cafe/restaurant that’s situated within the chateau.

Here’s just a few more pics I took today…

Jeff & Ruben at the garden entrance

One of the peacocks within the gardens

The box hedges at Marqueyssac

The chapel within the gardens

View from the Garden heights

Stone heads at Marqueyssac

 European Christmas markets are world famous and France boasts some of the best inlcuding our favourite in the Beautiful city of Bordeaux – just one and half hours drive from our lovely holiday cottages – La Treille Gites.

The Bordeaux Christmas Market or ‘Marche Noel’ is held every year and is ideally placed right in the heart of the city, it’s open during the whole month of December with the stalls trading their unique wares up till 8pm on weekday evenings and 10pm at weekends.

We went with friends and had a lovely time browsing around the pretty market kiosks searching for ’special gifts’, having lunch in one of the numerous bistro restaurants and then sipping hot mulled wine later in the evening.

Getting to Bordeaux was a breeze with 90% of the journey on the motorway.  We drove straight into the centre of the city and parked in the underground car park at the Allee de Tourny  – this was immediately below the market stalls – perfect!  We purchased ourselves a Sat Nav a few weeks earlier and although we took it we really didn’t need it – we found our way directly to our chosen car park with not a single wrong turn… an unusual feat for us!

In between visiting the markets we stopped for lunch in a lovely little bistro restaurant.  The prices are amazingly good for city centre dining – in our eatery we chose the menu de jour which consisted of 3 courses including a bottle of wine for just 11 euros each. Fully refreshed we hit the streets again and made our way to the famous ‘rue St Catherine‘ – one of the longest pedestrianised shopping streets in Europe.  Here we discovered France’s top department store ‘Galeries Lafayette‘ and many other trendy French high street stores… A shopaholics mecca!!!

There are so many interesting places and buildings to see in Bordeaux including The Grande Theatre, museums and many churches and monuments including this beautiful bell tower ‘Gross Cloche’ and Cathedral Saint Andre… Here’s a link to a very good site with lots of information.

We had such a lovely time and would definately recommend a visit to Bordeaux – especially at this wonderfull time of year… we’ll definately be coming back to explore more that this amazing city of culture and all it has to offer.  If you want to come too you’re in for a treat!

It might be early winter here in the Dordogne but that doesn’t mean we have to hibernate.  The local towns and villages are just as pretty as we may remember in the summer but they take on a different hue and are just as pleasant to visit in these cooler seasons. 

Just a 10 minute drive from La Treille heading NE on the D78 towards Brantome is the pretty village of Bourdeilles.  The narrow cobbled streets and pretty little houses are clustered around the Renaissance Chateau and it’s Fortress.  The River Dronne meanders along side the chateau and through the village making it perfect for a brisk afternoon winter walk.  Others obviously had the same idea as us as there were quite a few people promenading arm in arm along the river.  It’s possible to take a tour of the chateau and a climb up to the top the tower gives visitors a magnificient view over the town and surrounding countryside.

 We walked around the narrow streets and then called in for a warming coffee in one of the little cafe’s that still had a few tables and chairs outside. The cafe owner was preparing a huge couldron of duck and vegetable soup ready for that evening.  He asked us if we would mind tasting his soup to make sure he hadn’t over salted it… it was delicious!

Want to know more about Bourdeilles – click here!

Limeuil is about 90km (57 miles ) SE from La Treille Gites using the viamichelin website.  We set-off about 11am and arrived about an hour later in the village.  Driving through the village following the sign for Tremolat there was a free car park on the left about 250m outside the main village rather than the main ‘pay and display’ one that you see when you first arrive in the village.

The Rivers meet

The river beach at Limeuil

The village is nestled on the banks of two joining rivers – the Dordogne and the Vezere.

View down street at Limeuil

Ancient archway over street

Cobbled street at Limeuil

With parts of the original fortified walls still surrounding the village, its narrow cobbled streets with honey coloured  houses  gradually meander up the steep hill toward the Ancient chapelle  of Sainte Catherine.

Sainte Catherine Chapel, Limeuil

Another view of the Chapelle

View across the Valley

Here’s a view across the valley where you can just see some ‘ancient cave houses’ built into the sandstone cliff’s opposite…  Don’t forget you can click on any of these photo’s to enlarge them!

Right at the top of the village was a park but we were too tight to pay the entrance fee of 6 euros each so didn’t venture past the entrance gates.  Apparently the views are pretty spectacular!

Gateway to the parc at Limeuil

Hidden among the shady cobbled streets about half way up through the village are 2 or 3 quaint little restaurants with lovely shady terraces.  They all looked quite busy today as suprisingly for this time of year there were quite a few tourists about.  The food looked and smelled delicious and appeared really good value with one menu listing a 3 course meal with wine at just over 10 euros… so refreshing not to see ‘rip-off prices’ at these top tourist attractions.  We’d already decided to have lunch at the restaurant that we’d seen earlier down near the river where our dog (Ruben) hopefully would behave himself.

Having reached the sumit we started to head back down but were being hotly pursued by this cute little pooch…

Dog on the loose

I just had to take his photo as the poor little thing only had 1 eye… I could have so easily have picked him up and stashed him in my rucksack, he’d make a great playmate for Ruben!

We managed to shake the ‘follower’ and kept moving down, Jeff spotted this water tap in the wall and cheekily filled the dogs water bottle…

Helping yourself to council pop?

We reached the bottom and found a table on the terrace at the restaurant.  They were only serving snacks like quiche, croque monsieur and  frits but that was fine with us.

Lunch by the river

After we’d eaten we let Ruby go for a paddle in the river…

Ruben paddling

We’d definately recommend Limeuil for a day-out, it’s not too far from the gites and with lots of other lovely towns in this area it’s well worth a visit!

Us at Limeuil

The title of this blog may seem a little strange… that is to say who would put a Chateau and Go-Karting in the same sentence?

Here’s the logic behind my madness… During the summer we have quite a number of families holidaying in our gites and we like to be able to recommend interesting places for them to visit.  Whilst researching ‘places of interest for children in the Dordogne‘ I came across a Go-Karting Venue near Javerlac which isn’t too far from the beautiful Chateau of Puyguilhem.  In my wisdom I thought what a brilliant idea to combine the two places for a fantastic day out where the children (and the adults of course) will love to go go-karting in the morning (and wear them out a little) and then mum and dad could do a spot of  ‘culture therapy’ with the Chateau visit in the afternoon.  Some great photo oportunities at both events are of course promised.

The day we went to have a look at the Go-Karting circuit was unfortunately the day after the schools started back after the long summer holidays here so we were the only people there besides a couple of members of staff.  There are 2 circuits – a small one for the children and a large circuit (over 1200m) for the adults.  They both looked very professional especially the large one ‘La Grande Piste de Karting’ as you can see in this photo…

Go-Kart track at Javerlac

Childrens Go-Kart circuit at Javerlhac

We’ll definitely be going back at sometime in the near future with a few friends to ‘have a go’ ourselves.  It’s not cheap at 24€ for kids (gives 3 x 8 minute sessions) and 36€ for Adults (gives 2 x 10 minute sessions) but the kids will love you for treating them.  Click here for a link to this Go-Karting Circuit website.

That afternoon we then headed to the village of Villars and in particular on this occassion the ‘Chateau Puyguilhem‘ which was just half an hour east of Javerlhac and the Go-karting circuit.  Villars is in it’s own right a very pretty village, well worth a visit and of course, famous for the ‘Grotte de Villars‘ – the ancient prehistoric caves, but we’ll leave those for another day…  Today is Chateau day!

Château Puyguilhem

We paid our 5€ admission fee,  the lady in the reception automatically handed us the ‘English language’ information guide (my “Bonjour” was obviously so ‘English’) and headed into the Chateau.   From the outside it really is in a quite exquisite setting even without the lake that used to be in existence many years ago.   The surrounding open countryside with the valley sloping away from the chateau and a forest behind is very fitting for this glorious castle.  It looked like we’d just missed the start of a guided tour but the guide kindly called us over to join the party… the guide turned out to be quite a character (I guess it goes with the territory) and made the visit so much more interesting with his little quips and jovial manner.  He did go on a little though about the tapestries that hung in some of the rooms.

Tapestry in Her Ladyships Bedroom

At one point he insisted a couple of the tourists including myself take 3 different photo’s from different angles to help us appreciate the detail of the ‘Leonardo effect’ after the painter of the Mona Lisa.

Tapestry at Puyguilhem

Puyguilham tapestry

Puyguilhem Tapestry with Leonardo effect

This effect is also known as Trompe-l’œl (to fool the eye) – you can see another blog on this ‘paint effect’ and a local museum in Perigueux that we visited earlier this year.   The guide was obviously very proud of these artifacts and I felt quite a ’smarty pants’ that I understood what he was talking about.  Anyway I’m waffling now so to get back to the subject in hand… your supposed to feel like the horse’s eyes are following you around the room!  Not quite sure it worked on me as I was getting a little flustered at the guides attention and enthusiasm.  The tour took us through about a dozen rooms including The Great Hall, The Dining Hall, The Kitchen, Weapons room and The Lord and Ladyships Bedrooms.  Oh here’s a picture of the guide himself sitting in ‘Her Ladyship’s Bedroom’…

The lovely tour guide at Puyguilhem Chateau

You’ll just have to go see for yourself to see what I mean. x

The beautiful town of Brantôme is a ‘must see place’ during your stay at La Treille gites.

Starting from La Treille, following the River Dronne along the D78, it’s a leisurely, 25 minute scenic drive passing through the small picturesque villages of Lisle and Bourdeilles until you arrive in Brantôme.

Ancient Abbey & Church at Brantôme

Fondly known as the ‘Venice of the Périgord’ due to the town being situated on a wide bend of the River Dronne.  With 5 lovely picturesque arched bridges crossing the river at various points leading to the cobbled shady streets of the Centre Ville.  Any day is a good day to visit Brantôme although Friday is market day and this makes it even more interesting, with lots to see including the magnificent ancient Abbey and Church majestically perched above the river.

Market Day at Brantôme

Traditional market at Brantôme

rue Victor Hugo, Brantôme

Strolling through the narrow streets, take your time to  browse the numerous market stalls offering a wide variety of produce…  from Traditional Regional mouth watering delicacies such as Foie Gras,  Confit and Gratons de Canard (duck scratchings) & Figs au Foie Gras to beautiful jewellery hand crafted by local artisans…  lots of lovely things to spend your holiday cash on whether it’s something to put on the barbecue back at your gite or finding those special presents for friends and family back home.

Saucisses stall

Légume Stall

Foie Gras Stall

There are also many riverside restaurants and café’s at Brantôme and lots of photo oportunities with wonderful back drop scenery.

Hire a conoe and see the town from a different perspective or if you’re not feeling that energetic there’s always the river boat that you can hop on for a guided tour.

Beautiful Brantôme

Brantôme from the river

1 of the 5 bridges spanning the River

Bonne appetit!

We have been enjoying an an absolutely wonderful summer this year here in the Dordogne,  I can’t remember the last time in rained.  Last week seemed to be the peak with a heat wave and sweltering temperatures hovering around 38ºC mark!

Our guests are happy… having obtained beautiful golden suntans, enjoyed making full use of our lovely swimming pool, visited lots of lovely places and leaving totally relaxed.

Thursday 9th July 2009

Terrason & the 2 Bridges over the Vézère

Finally we made it to one of the many attractions that the Dordogne has to offer.  The town of Terrasson sits abreast the River Vézère in the Perigord Noir region of the Dordogne. It is quaintly split into the old town, on the Southside of the River and the New town on the North.  Terrasson is about 90km (58 miles) East of La Treille, it took us about an hour and a half – not bad considering the 10 minutes caught up in the roadworks on the D710 and N2089 around Perigueux and Boulazac. We arrived in the town at about 12 noon and parked up in a car park which was on the edge of some lovely public gardens ‘Ile de la Vergne‘… perfect for our picnic later!

Public gardens at Terrasson

We crossed the main high street where the weekly market traders were just packing-up and headed into the Office Tourisme to pick up some brochures and a ‘town map’. Kind of wished we’d got here earlier as the weekly market looked pretty good and appeared to be spread all along the river and even across the 2 bridges that spanned the river.  Tant pis (never mind) as they say, we decided to check out the old town across the river before having a picnic and then going on to see the gardens.

The old town and its remparts are proudly perched on the face of the cliff, know as the ‘falaise du malpas‘ (roughly translates as ‘inconvenient passage’) overlooking the River Vézère where in ancient times it acted as a perfect lookout and natural protection against attacks by vikings and other undesirables – hence the inconvenient passage to make it difficult to access! It has recently undergone major renovations to protect the sandstone cliffs from eroding, prevent the church of ‘Saint Sour’ from collapsing and to allow the residents who still inhabit the old town to carry on living there.  Decked bridges and walkways have been anchored to the side of the cliff to allow visitors to climb up into the old town and promenade along the remparts – the views were magnificent…

Falaise du Malpas

The renovation works are still on-going and many of the old buildings are currently being renovated by artisans using sandstone blocks and the blue slate tiles (which is very unusual in the Dordogne) for the roofing as you can see…

A café bar in the old town

Artisans at work in Terrasson

I think they need to lay off the old vino after seeing this building though…

Trop de vin rouge, je pense!

C'est bizarre non?

I can’t imagine anyone actually living in this building, it’s only about 1 meter wide so I guess it just been renovated as a ‘frontage’ for appearance sake.  The second picture shows the rear of the building where the artisans have completely covered the vertical face in the blue slate tiles… weird eh!

Oh I forgot to mention that the promenade around the remparts is actually mapped out with numbered sign posts and each one gives a little history of the town.  There are 17 posts to follow.  I should have done more homework before coming or at least read the literature I picked-up from the Office Tourism and then we would have been better informed. Oh well, it’ll be something to do another day with some friends perhaps.

Cirquit historique

There were also many ‘baroque gardens‘ dotted here and there within the old town although I never took any photo’s for some strange reason.

Here’s another shot of the views from the remparts…

Panorama view over Terrasson

Of course you couldn’t miss the huge 15th Century church of Saint Sour built upon the sandstone cliff, a magnificent piece of architecture…

Eglise Saint Sour

L'Eglise Saint Sour

We’d spent a good couple of hours touring around the old town and were good and ready for a spot of lunch.  We made our way back down to the river and across the old 12th Century bridge back to the car.

Picnic at terrasson

The public gardens at Terrasson called ‘ Ile de la Vergne‘ were really quite lovely with manicured lawns, a large ornamental fountain, canoe hire centre & picnic area beside the river.  We settled at one of the the benches and had lunch.

After lunch we headed back over the river to ‘Les Jardins de L’Imaginaire‘.  There was an office tourism uniquely for the gardens and it was here that you pay to visit.  The tickets were 7 euros each and included the obligatory guided tour. Oh, I’d phoned before leaving this morning to make sure it was ok to take dogs and as it happened there were about 3 other dogs with their owners about to go on the next tour so Ruben had company too!  The tour lasted about an hour and a quarter and although obviously in French we were given a translation booklet to aid us.  The gardens were designed by Kathryn Gustafson and built in 1996, they cover over 6 hectares with different themes covering humanity through the centuries.

Walking down to the rose gardens

One of the water features

The water gardens

The wave perspective

Although very pleasant we would have preferred to meander through the gardens at our own pace but unfortunately it appears that this is not possible and you must  ’go with the guide’.  If you have been around any one of numerous gardens belonging to the stately homes back in the UK I think you may be a little disappointed with Les Jardins des l’Imaginaire!  There was a distinct lack of colourful planting within the gardens even though we had come at the height of summer.

I think the narrative and dialogue from the guide herself and the guide book were overly flowery and poetic and tried to impress on you a magical and wondrous ’secret garden’ that unfortunately just didn’t live up to the publicity or descriptions given.  The water features were quite impressive and I guess you have to keep telling yourself that the gardens are only in their infancy and need time to mature.

As you can tell we were a bit disappointed.

Having said that we were pleased we had come to Terrasson if not just to see the ‘old town’ – that was definitely worth a half days visit and at least now I can say “I’ve been there’ done that” and tick another one of the Dordogne’s attractions off my ‘to do list’.

Next up is the biggest event celebrated in the whole of France… Bastille Day on the 14th July.  We’ll be heading in to Perigueux for all the action and see the fireworks.  Come back to see my next post in a couple of days!!!

The vide-greniers in France seem to have a better class of ‘junk’ to the car boot’s in the UK and I love the way the sellers all stop for the obligatory 2 hour lunch, out come their hampers and bottles of wine… no burger stands here I’m afraid!

Coutures vide Grenier

Coutures Vide-Grenier

Just like the one’s in the UK though you do find all sorts of unusual finds.  Today there was this Virago 135cc Motorcycle for sale -

Virago Motorbike for sale at the Vide-Grenier

No we didn’t buy it although it might be more suitable for Jeff nowadays than the Busa he’s got… lol.  Then again I wouldn’t mind something like that for around here. At least I’d be on the road again… long story and if you’re interested you can read all about it here… http://julesbike.blogspot.com/

Rusty farm tools at the Vide-Grenier

Further on we seen this collection of rusty old farming tools and instruments – I love stuff like this and really have to stop myself buying any of it.  I’m making a determined effort to be a minimalist!

Vide Grenier at Coutures

Actually we did buy something… we saw a children’s bicycle and decided to buy it – it was only 20 euros and I’m sure out gite guests children would make use of it.  You can just see it before we bought it here…

New bike at La treille

And here is it just waiting to be used back at the gites….

Visiting these vide-greniers is a great way to discover the local area and all the little villages that are tucked away here in the Dordogne.  I remember when we first came here, of only hearing of the odd 1 or 2, but now their popularity has grown and there are dozens every weekend all over France – just like in the UK.  France is also slowley catching up with the 20th century and there is even a website dedicated to vide-greniers and brocantes – see here oh, by the way, just in case you were wondering what vide-grenier means… a direct translation would be ‘empty attick’.

Riberac Market from the steps of L'Hôtel de Ville

Du pain

Du figue avec foie gras

Du Vin et Pinot

Du Brocante

Here’s the Café’s in the main square…

Café des Colonnes, Riberac

La Gavotte, Riberac

After sitting at the café terrace with a coffee and ‘naughty but nice’ pastry and chatting to friends we bumped into we followed a path previously taken and headed up the street behind the town…

View over rooftops, Riberac

and if money was no object this would be the type of house I’d love to live in… I think!!!

My dream House!

Main Street & Square, Saint Aulaye

The town and its main street is built up around the D5, with the usual array of village shops and café’s. We found a side street off the main square and strolled through the old ‘rue des Remparts’ (cobbled streets with low stone walls overlooking the valley below).

Taking in the Views from the Remparts

Remparts at Saint Aulaye

Sign outside the communal bakery

We came across this ancient ‘communal bread oven’ that the local tourist information centre have opened to the public. shame about the spelling mistake but I thought it was quaint and then again I’m probably the last person the criticise…

The ovens belonged to the Lords of St Aulaye and from the 13th Century the Bastide’s inhabitants were bound to use them to bake their bread against a fee due!

Inside the communal Bakery

Tools for the oven

Here is L’Église Saint Eulalie…

l'Église Saint Eulalie

And the Renaissance château -

L'Hôtel de Ville - Rear view

Constructed from the ruines of an existing building and restored by the scientist Francois Viault (also known for his research into the study of blood at high altitudes)…

This is the front of the château – it was converted into the l’Hôtel de Ville in 1954…

L'Hôtel de ville - Front view

View of the Chateau from the Remparts

Shame about the leaf!

We then headed down to the river where there was a lovely pizzaria and large café bar restaurant right beside the river’s edge, with the ancient bridge in the background it was a lovely spot for lunch.

We’d bought a picnic and after letting Ruben have a play and swim in the river (there wasn’t a lot of people about) we settled on one of the many benches and enjoyed our picnic. There were many beaches dotted around here and could tell it would be very busy here in just a few weeks with the summer holiday makers.

Picnic area by the river Dronne

Ruben in the Dronne

Happy Ruben