(Sunday 1st June – 10.2 km/3hr, 30m)
Segonzac is approximately a 15 minute drive (15 km) via Douchapt from La Treille. I know it has been a while since I last posted and I know I’m going to be rusty for this walk. Our gite business season started early this year and so I’ve been busy getting the gites ready for guests. The garden has also had a bit of a makeover so unfortunately the walks have had to go on the back burner for a while. Also, the weather over the last 2 months has been very poor here in the SW of France – record rain falls and very cool. It’s still very changeable but hopefully things are looking better from now on. The weather today (Sunday) is a very pleasant 20-23ºc and sunny although the clouds are threatening more rain this evening. Better get a move on. I’ve coaxed my husband Jeff in to coming with me as although the walks are lovely it’s a bit sad doing them alone – Ruben’s great fun to be with but sometimes it’s good to have someone along to share your finds with.

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!