18/4 The Dordogne Valley, and the Borchardts
Early departure from the town “aire” and headed off in the drizzly morning for a whistle stop at Rocamodour, 2nd most visited village in France, to see what the fuss is all about. Jeff skillfully weaved our widish Eddie path thru the rural lanes to find a splendid cliff side village with the pinnacle occupied as expected by the church.
Too early for the masses, we found only a few delivery guys and a garbo in the narrow streets, all shops closed up, we climbed from the carpark at the bottom up and around the sheer cliff with shops and dwellings chiseled into the rock, sitting astride each other, all looking like it had been there forever and would remain so, across the valley the road weaves up past a wee sentinel turret which sits overlooking an impossibly pleasing bend of road suspended out from the hill .......check it out:
Ascended out of the commercial/domestic zone into the religious zone where we found 3+ levels of worship - piled on top of each other, with the pinnacle being an outdoor Stations of the Cross situated on a grand mossy,meditative switchback trail climbing the cliff-edge, a Station at every twist...........
This town is one for the Christian pilgrim!
Drove on to Salat de Caneda to meet with Max and Karen Borchardt, Jen’s gym friends from Brisbane who are coincidentally here for a month or so.
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| Big Max |
Met them in the busy market place that occupied the center of yet another Plus Beaux Village, this one noted for it’s honey coloured stonework, and for it’s market!
More grand serendipity meeting these fine Aussies in this fine place on market day. The market despite the inclement weather is abuzz with fine food vendors peddling all sorts of goose products ,cheeses,sausages of all sorts, and great hunks of nougat jammed with nuts & coffee....and snails.
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| Market in an old church |
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| Nougat!! |
One part permanently occupies a central church bringing it noisily alive with colour,smells,accents from around the world,laughter & light! Our Aussie mates brandishing a Michelin guide found us a nice little restaurant where we sheltered cozily in the downpour, chewed the fat and learnt all sorts of things of grand interest to all - we shall have to catch up at home over a Maxie Osso-Bucco and a red, followed by a fine scotch or 3, all but the date set!
Fully satiated, mostly by the fantastic company, we were the last to the leave the restaurant and popped out into the street between downpours, seemed a different world as the market had packed up and disappeared. Buggar - missed the nougat.
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| Masonry!! |
Quick look at the cathedral, parted with Max and Karen, then a serpiginous wander back to Eddie and a drive on to Domme (another Plus Beaux Village) where we found it teeming down and the only way to get up to the village was to walk 2.5km on the windy road, (Eddies are banned), so we just drove on past more Beaux Villages dotted along the Dordogne Valley, across into the Vezere Valley (The Valley of Mankind) to a very well facilitied campsite to wash, fill, and net.
19/4 A day in the rain, home work after getting up at 1100 (including maths and writing for the kids), haircuts in Montignac (Kel ecstatic with her “bobbie” like Karen’s).
Jen ran in the mud, Jeff cycled in the rain/sun/rain a circuit past the Roque of St Christophe (huge 1km long chunk of limestone which has been intermittently occupied by man from prehistory to the medieval times), then all smelling of roses and well fed with yet another mumma seafood pasta ,hit the sack for some reading and a long kip.
20/4 Still intermittent showers and bright sunshine, headed into Montignac, led astray again by TomTom but managed to just make the English guided tour of the Lascaux II Cave.
A marvelous reproduction of a Cro-Magnon decorated cave, it houses paintings we all know (horses and bulls and stags), possibly the most well known prehistoric art work in the world. The original cave found in 1940 by 4 teenage boys (who chased their dog down a hole opened up by a recently fallen tree) is 200m away and sealed up against diseases that we humans might bring that could destroy the artwork .The reproduction is stunning nevertheless and the excellent guide/commentary brings it to life. Must have been a rich culture to have the luxury of time and creativity to invest such time & effort.
Drove on westward to St-Emilion for some viticulture.
TomTom lead us on a wiggly but alluring approach past small homes & chateauxs dotted amongst a patchwork of gorgeous picturesque symmetrical & enticing UNESCO listed vineyards.
Walked around the town, surprising ourselves with our palpable developing excitement as we wandered shoulder-shrugging & tail-wagging through boutique shop after another full of nothing else but things to do with wine! Fancy this, a whole region that’s UNESCO listed for it’s cultural use of the landscape!
Some visionary monk, Emilion ,settled here in the 9th century and since that time, the AOC ( Appelation d’Original Controlle) strictly watchdog the maintenance of traditional wine-making even dis-allowing artificial irrigation.Very informative visitors centre where we planned tomorrow (rain, hail, or shine, probably all 3!). Late afternoon the streets were clearing but most outlets still open, all related to red wine, for which this area is famous. Wandered into a “cave” as they are called here, underground wine cellar + door/sales where we met Johann (Rusty) a young French wine maker who spent a few years in Margaret River and subsequently loves Australia.
A very relaxed and informative tour of the cave followed, then a degustation, kids having a sniff and a sip as Rusty explained the basics to them, bought a great bottle and headed back to Eddie in the carpark just adjacant to the town, cold horizontal rain in our faces .
Soon after getting in to the comfort of Ed the sun came out for an awesome finale, setting and burning up the colours of the village and vineyard in front of us. Kids recorded their experiences of the Lascaux Caves, leftover dinner interrupted twice by runs outside with the camera.
Kids enjoying the whole wine thing as we cracked open an accompanying drop from Begerac gifted to us by the owner’s of the last campsite.Wil especially MOST keen to pontificate on the characteristics of the ‘nose’,‘bouquet’& ‘palate’,applying “Rusty’s Rules” in our approach to the glass ..... another amazing day in France!
21/4 St Emilion
Jeff put me to shame and in the cold & rain set of for a run amongst vineyards returning ruddy cheeked having been rewarded with a magnificent landscape (or ‘manscape’ as he called it!) This unique limestone plateaux has been thoroughly worked since the 3rd century.
Initially the Gallo-Romans settled planting grains and vines. These did really well because the whole region faces South and slopes slightly downhill into the massive Dordogne River. Then came The Monk who lived simply in caves and in his honour, followers dug out a massive underground church which in turn revealed the building potential of these fabulous limestone blocks,preserved and coloured more favourably if mined down shafts rather than from an open cut approach. These built most of the UNESCO listed nearby city of Bordeaux. Folk also realised that the resultant caves with a constant high humidity & low temps stored wine well. Because of the overlying sealing layer of clay, stalgmites & tights don’t form and ‘voila’, the perfect setting for viticulturists! Underlying St Emilion, man has so extensively exploited about 30m of the 90 metre depth that to prevent massive collapse, authorities stopped this activity in 1870.
So here sits this fascinating & very unique geology that over thousands of years, has been used in such an unusual way barely changing yet being so ongoingly viable financially, agriculturally and culturally. Love it,love it.
Started our day with a visit to the Maison du Vin where all chateaux products are sold as well as a groovy little gallery where one can sniff and guess and learn about the stages of growing ,fermenting and bottling the wines.
Did you know that the vine buds start life with a wee cotton coat to protect them? Terrific information. Kel was most keen to hop on the dear little white tourist train that took us chugging amongst the vineyards with an English commentary.
Back to Ed for maths & lunch whilst rain/wind howled and growled outside. Wil sprinted through his set work pushing us enthusiastically to take another tour at Villemaure !? And weren’t we pleased..... a splendid 90 minutes of learning about the vines, the quarry, caves and then, his favourite part, the tasting shop.
He and Kel pondered the bouquets and tanins (strangely much to mum's delight!)
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