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!

1 – Rambling around La Treille Gites in the glorious September sunshine -

It’s been an absolutely perfect summer and even now during late September the sun is out giving us temperatures in the mid twenties.  It may well be the end of the main summer holiday season but there is still so much to see and do around our gites this time of year.  If you are looking for an Autumn break in the French countryside the Dordogne is a wonderful region with so much to offer all year round.

Our last guests of the season arrived yesterday (Saturday 26th September) and are here for 5 nights – the forecast is good all week with no rain predicted.

In the meantime we donned our walking boots and went out to enjoy a little ramble (sounds like we’re really getting into this country lark) around our patch of the woods.  We headed down the lane to the hamlet of Bernichoux, up the white calcaire track and then down into Tocane St Apre.  It’s only a short walk of about 45 minutes but quite lovely this time of year.

Jeff & Ruben enjoying the late summer sunshine

Lovely walks around La Treille Gites

Julie the rambler

Blackberries and elderberries are in abundance and the walnut trees are promising a good harvest. I scrumped a few apples and made some scrummy apple and blackcurrant pies and crumbles

… mmm lovely comfort food for stocking up the freezer and to remind us of our summer’s past during the chilly winter months.

Home-made Crumble

Ruben in the Dronne

Here’s our dog ‘Ruben’ cooling down in the River…

2 – Autumn Harvest in the Dordogne -

All our local farmers are busy right now and the Combine Harvester is working overtime – the sunflowers were harvested at the end of August and they are now starting to harvest the corn crop.

Here’s a few pictures showing the harvester working around La Treille… they worked well into the night and were still going strong at around 1am!

Mr & Mrs Harris

Corn Harvesting

Corn Harvest

Fortunately I’d pre-warned our gite guests this might happen but they were absolutely fine about it…  even commenting in our guest book “that ‘it was magic”‘!

Harvesting into the night

The municipal workers have been around and trimmed all the hedge rows and cut the grass verges – it’s all looking very neat although there’s a secondary reason for keeping the grass verges short… when the walnut’s fall from the tree’s lining the lanes a few local folk are out collecting them for hours on end.  It must be a back breaking job and I hope it’s all worth while when they take them to the local markets to sell. (they must have claim to these particular trees)

The walnut trees at La Treille

Walnut harvest

This is a picture of our neighbour James Hatton…

James on his Tractor

Sitting proudly on his latest project, ‘A Massey Ferguson Tractor’.  He bought it off our other neighbour and has been restoring it over the last few months to it’s former glory.  James along with his wife Jane and their two lovely boys successfully run a dog and cat kennels just over the hill from us – it’s where Ruben will be staying in a few days.  The Kennels are called Pattes et Griffes Pension Canine (Paws & Claws boarding kennels).

We were passing through St Astier today and there was a farmers fair along with the usual Sunday vide grenier (car boot sales that seem to be in every village on every Sunday these days).  The farmers had this old fashioned bailing machine, at least I think it was old fashioned it looked ancient and they were demonstrating it… it was really noisy and creating a lot of dust but fascinating.

Bailing machine

St Astier Farm Fete

Well, that’s about it from me for a while as we’re off on a well earned break to sunny Spain to visit Jeff’s brother who lives in Catalunya.  Our last guests have left, we’ve closed the gites and put away all the garden furniture and Jeff’s even cleaned the car (a very rare event) so we’re almost set for the ‘great get-away’.

Autumn at La Treille

Jeff & The SAAB

I’ll be back though with posts throughout the rest of the Autumn and Winter of our life here in the Dordogne.

We’d had a busy morning, Jeff painting the house windows & shutters and I’d been jet-washing the terraces we decided we needed to go for a walk. We didn’t really fancy a ‘countryside walk’ but something different so we headed into the city of Perigueux.

Not following a map today just a gentle stroll with Ruben on the lead we drove there and parked-up near the River Isle. The river runs all around the South edge of the city and has a lovely ‘promenade’ where you can stroll with your family and friends.  It’s so peaceful and relaxing but only 2 minutes walk back into the heart of the city with all it’s hustle and bustle.

Pont Sud (South Bridge), l'Isle, Perigueux

We started just before the ‘South Bridge’ seen here and headed towards the bridge ‘Pont St Georges’ where the photo was taken from

View of the Cathedral taken from the River

Here’s a shot of the Cathedrale Saint Front from the River.

Moulin de Ste Claire on the River l'Isle

This photo was taken from the passerelle (footbridge) on the Pont Japhet looking back towards the Moulin de Ste Claire which is now home to a Canoe & leisure club.

Cathedrale St Front & The Vieux Moulin, Perigueux

This lovely shot was taken from the promenade du Canal of the Cathedral St Front and the building in front is the Vieux Moulin – this ancient structure apparently once acted as a storage and lookout tower across the river.  It appears to be perched upon a brick pillar column with no apparent access (unless you have to get the ladders out)… fascinating!

Promenade du Canal, l'Isle, perigueux

Taken on the Promenade du Canal. With the River obviously on the left, on the right there were  well tended allotments.

We’d only been walking about 25 minutes but it was quite warm and I’d stupidly forgotten to bring a drink so we headed into the city to find a café.

Le Vertu Café Bar, Perigueux

We found this lovely little bar in the vieille ville (old village) and found a table on the terrace in the shade.

I had a lovey cool glass of Pinot (rouge is my favourite but they’d only got blanc) and Jeff had a demi (half a beer blonde).

The lady that served us even bought Ruben a lovely cool bowl of water… il est très contente!

Vieille Ville, Perigueux

Suitably refreshed we took a stroll through the ‘circuite vieille ville’.

Car in the Vieille Ville, Perigueux

Fascinating cobbled narrow  streets, it was like stepping back a hundred years in time.

View from the Vieille Ville, Perigueux

Vieille Ville, Perigueux

Heading back to the River along the Promenade…

Camping cars parked on the Quay beside the l'Isle

Here’s the Quai de l’Isle where lots of camping cars park most days right beside the river.

Bike repairs on the Quai de l'Isle

Looks like this guy is doing a bit of maintenance on his bike -I wouldn’t mind taking a holiday in a camping car, especially if you could take the bike with you… what a brilliant idea!

And that was it for today.  More from the River another day…

I haven’t got a map for this walk… but starting from the centre ville we seen the map sign and headed headed up the hill until we came across the first yellow post (they do work eh). Following a track through a lovely shaded wood (a gentle gradient rise uphill).

I was soooo keen to get going I completely forgot to take a few shots around Lisle for my blog so the first one is of Ruben off the lead on the walk. I’ll get some Lisle shots another day and post them here.

The wooded path bought us out at the top of the hill with panormic views across the countryside

As I said earlier we were both quite unfit and Jeff used this ‘bus stop’ shack to take a rest for 5.   Ruby enjoyed a good bit of ’stick throwing & catching’ while we took in the views!

And here’s a rare picture of the pair of us taken using the automatic timer…

Both well recovered we headed off towards a hamlet called La Martinie which was very pretty with some lovely old houses.

Passing through the hameau a little further on we came across this rather overgrown Lavoir…

It’s just outside another little Hameau called Le Bournat.  That wasn’t the most interesting thing on this walk though…  What do you make of this…

According to all the signs around it was a self proclaimed ‘Cyber Nuklear Farm du PERIGORD’. It looked really spooky, like something out of the movie ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ where some forgotten folks have created their own little world. There was loads of ’stuff’ lying about either side of the lane – looked like a really eccentric inventor may live here. There was a website listed on the ‘blue sign’ and I’ve tried all different permitations in my browser but can’t get it to work – it reads ‘http://www.nuklearkhaOSGROUP.COM’.

Whilst we were walking past, a young ‘hippie style’ guy with dreadlocks came across the lane and said something but when I replied that my French wasn’t very good he said in really good English “don’t worry about the dogs barking, they can’t get out”… whoooa, like I said spooky!!! Actually he seemed quite nice, at least he was smiling and not hiding an axe behind him. It really was fascinating and I’d love to know more… who is he & what’s it all about? If anyone knows please put me out of my misery and tell.

We dragged ourselves away and moved along… the path ran alongside the D2 main road for a short while before coming into another little Hamlet with farm animals where I took this lovely shot of a goose and a black hen…

We rested again just after this and had a little picnic.

Have you ever know a dog eat apple before…

Well, that’s it for another day…. See you next time!

The town of Riberac can be quite sleepy, especially in the winter except on Friday Mornings when it comes alive with it’s weekly market – it’s reputed to be the biggest market in the Dordogne. From early spring through to Autumn the town is a lot livlier – the café’s are buzzing with tourists and locals. During the evenings local musicians (traditional and modern) give live free performances on the terraces outside the café’s in the main square during the evenings.

Anyway, today is not a Friday and still pretty much ‘winter time’ so the town is quite – almost deserted!. Luckily for us the weather is dry and about 10ºc so perfect for walking. So with Ruben securly on his lead off we headed…

This is walk No.2 ‘Boucle du Puy du Cros’ on the ‘Canton de Ribérac’ guide and only 5km long. It sets off right outside the Tourist Information Centre (where the staff are very helpful andwhere you can buy these maps btw) right in the centre of the town.

Here’s the map & Signpost outside the gates of the Tourist Information.

Just across the square named ‘Place Charles-de-Gaulle’ stands the ‘Palais de Justice’.

A stone pony – sculpted by local artist Edmund Ashby – http://edmundashby.com/

Heading through the square we cross the main road (rue Marc Dufraisse) and head up a small passage (rue Notre-Dame) to the church also called Notre-Dame – you can just see it’s spires behind the houses. This is probably it’s best feature as close up it’s not very inspiring.

Just to the side of the church the walk leads up onto the quaintist little grassy pathway ‘chemin herbeux’ that looks over the towns residents back gardens (lovely if your quite nosey like me). This is heading up the hill behind the town.

Chucks on the path, Riberac

Here’s a couple of the resident chickens pecking away on the path.

At the top of the path you pass by another church (this one much prettier) ‘Collégiale Notre-Dame’ and with lovely views across the rooftops and the town.

And another view shot from the top of the hill with the spire of the first church ‘Notre-Dame’ on the horizon.

You get a sense of the depth through my snaps around the Maison de Dronne (Tocane’s Tourist Information Centre’s) and the tiny chapel on the opposite side of the river.

The pretty tree lined avenue leading from Tocane up to Montagrier (D103) was under about half a meter of water at one point and traffic was diverted along other routes.

Here’s a snap of the campsite at Lisle where they too suffered!

Unfortunately we only got about half way around the walk when Jeff started having problems with his right foot. The pain got to bad so we called it a day and headed back to the car.

After a visit to the doctors and then a consultation with a Podiatrist in Perigueux the good news is that something can be done to sort Jeff’s foot problem. It appears he has an arthritic condition that has caused a bone growth on his big toe. He’ll be having an operation on the 26th February and then hopefully after a couple of months recovery I’ll be dragging him out again.

Meanwhile, it’ll just be me and Ruben for the next few months…

Sorry I haven’t posted for some time and also for only just getting around to posting these shots taken last November.

The thing is I decided to check out our local walking groups thinking it might be a good idea to have some company on my walks. Obviously the walkers are all going to be French and although this would be a brilliant opportunity to improve my French conversation language skills (as well as keeping fit) it was a going to be a little daunting infiltrating this group an introducing myself.

A friend mentioned a group who meet up in Paussac & St Vivien every Friday afternoon. Paussac & St Vivien are a couple of small hamlets that are about a 20 minute drive from La Treille. I decided to go along and meet them and hopefully join them on a walk.

About 30 people turned up for the walk and they all seemed a lovely friendly bunch. There were about 5 or 6 English people and of course I naturally fell into step with my ex-pat walkers.

Quite a few of the walkers had dogs but I was a bit apprehensive about letting Ruben off the lead even though it was obviouse he was desperate to join the other ‘free’ dogs. After about 1/2 an hour one of the French ladies said I should let Ruben go. When I let him go she laughingly called after him “liberte pour le chien”! He was loving every minute of it.

The walk was quite long – about 4 and a 1/2 hours and they went at a fair pace. After the group were having their AGM in their meeting hall at Paussac. I stayed for about 45 minutes and then made my excuses and left… it was dragging on a bit and although it was good that I was picking up quite a bit of French there was a lot I really didn’t understand and so found it frustrating.

I promised I’d be back next week and left.

During the next week I found out about another group more local to me that met up every Tuesday afternoon. These were called
‘LES JOYEUX RANDONNEURS DE LISLE TOCANE’, that sounded good to me so I went along on the next Tuesday to check them out.

Again they were a lovely bunch although this time there were no English walkers that I could ‘hide amongst’ and so it was full on trying to converse in French. Not easy but I think I managed ok.

We started off from the
‘Pont d Ambon’ a little bridge crossing a spur of the River Dronne where there was a small carpark. I tried chatting with a couple of people during the walk and managed to have small conversations but one lady in particular was really friendly. Her name was
Marie-France and she had spent quite a lot of time in the UK some years ago so we had quite a good conversation, she didn’t seem to mind correcting my awful French. I think she quite enjoyed practicing her English again on me whilst I ‘tried’ to speak French to her. It was a bit stilted but we were having a laugh as well .

The group stopped for a 5 minute rest about once an hour and after about perhaps 2 and a half hours walking the group stopped again and it appeared that they were splitting into 2 groups with one group completing the full 5 hour walk whilst the other were taking a short cut back to the starting point. I decided not to push my luck on my first outing and joined the ’short cut’ group.

There were a couple of things I wasn’t keen on with these groups, one was actually being in a large group meant that you felt you couldn’t hang around and take in the views etc. I also missed not having a map to hand so and felt a little ‘lost’ and not having a sense of direction or ‘where I was on the walk’.

At the end of the walk I was given a form to complete for insurance purposes (this is qite normal for any ‘organised sporting group’ in France). I needed to take the form to my GP to sign once he’d agreed I was fit and healthy and bring it back with me completed if I wished to go on any further walks. I thought ‘no problem’, said my goodbye’s, and promised to see them again next week.

Here’s why it’s been a while since I made any posts here…

I made an appointment with my GP but unfortunately she picked-up on a forgotten heart murmer that I have. I remember a previous GP mentioning this about 10 years ago but was told at the time it really was nothing to worry about. Nevertheless my current GP insisted on me seeing a cardiologist to get it checked before she would sign my form. I couldn’t get an appointment until the 2nd February but of course once I’d been examined everything was ok. The cardiologist started to sign the form for me but unfortunately signed in the wrong place so I now have to go get another form from the group…. arghhhh!!!

We parked-up in the centre of the village in front of a modern sports stadium and football ground. There were map panels here giving directions for the our walk and the Circuit Romain – the famous Romanesque route taking in churches all over the Perigord regions. We put Ruby on the lead and headed toward Église Notre-Dame just behind the main street.

Do you remember me telling you about the Pilgrimage to the chapel of ‘St Jean de la lande’ in my Celles Post? Well, I noticed this posted on the door of the west facade of the church here in Segonzac. It’s a notice giving the date and details of the pilgrimage this year!

The village war memorial was just to the side of the church – here’s a photo of it…

The walk according to the map and directions told us to head out of the village toward the cematary but unfortunately we didn’t get very far… for 1 Jeff’s having problems with his back at the moment and I really shouldn’t have talked him into coming and 2, we only got just past the Marie and small school room when I spotted a signpost pointing to Chateau Segonzac. Being an impulsive devil I suggested a short detour off the mapped walk to go and have a look at the Chateau – the map appeared to show the walk not going directly past the chateau and it would be a shame to miss it.

After walking for about 20 minutes descending down a wide shady lane we came to what we first thought was another war memorial . On closer inspection it appears to be a private burial crypt – perhaps for the family that lived in the chateau just a little further on up the hill. The engravings were unfortunately too eroded to make out. There was aso a lovely lake just to the side of here.

The detour was longer than I envisaged and we got a little off the beaten track.

We arrived at the Chateau about 30 minutes later and I took a few snaps and the Chateau and the walk down to it. I’ve tried to find out who lives there etc but all the information on the search engines is in French (my french isn’t brilliant and it didn’t translate too well) – it appears to be (or was) owned by the Bardon family and dates back to the 14th Century

This plaque on the wall shows the date ‘1572′!

Ruby was getting a bit bored off all this by now so we headed back along the path to where we’d seen a yellow marker post directing walkers around the rear of the Chateau. The path took us past a somewhat overgrown orchard and then climbed up towards the top of the hill.

There were many varieties of Orchids along this path, here’s a photo of just one of them…

This is a shot near the top of the hill walk looking back over the valley to the rear of the Chateau.

Heading back down the hill the path was very muddy due to the heavy rains over the last few weeks. Many of the low fields were flooded.

We came accross this brook with a pretty little mill – if you click on the photo it will enlarge and you’ll see what I mean. This was probably only about a third of the way around the walk and at this point we decided to head back as Jeff’s back wasn’t too good.

I’ll hopefully come back some time next week and try to complete the walk proper – There’s a lot more to see including another Chateau – chateau de la Martinie!