Things to do in the Dordogne for all the family

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