Chateau view over Perigueux

You know, I’ve been pestering Jeff for weeks now to accompany me on a particular walk that I’ve been itching to explore.  The walk is just outside the City of Perigueux.  Driving into the city along the D939 at the junction with the D3 (Route d’Agonac) there’s a huge hill on the left hand side that I reckon would have amazing views over the historic city of Perigueux down below. Here’s the location on Google Maps! We just needed to find the best route up to the top.  I downloaded, magnified and printed a copy of the walk from Guides des randonnées and off we went!  By the way I’ve been raving to friends about this great recent find of mine and I’m sure any walkers or randonneurs in the Dordogne region would also find it a great resource, if of course, they didn’t already know about it.  I know these are available in ‘hard copy’ from most local tourist info centres (I’ve got a few copies of the Montagrier and Riberac issues) but it’s even better to have ‘instant on-line access’, be able to zoom-in and even print-off specific areas.  The other thing that I’ve found really useful about these ‘interactive’ maps is, like a lot of middle-aged duffers, my ‘taken for granted 20/20 vision’ is not what what is used to be,  recently I even succumbed to buying a pair of those ‘off the rack’ reading glasses (I’ve booked an appointment with an opthamologist to get them tested properly but they (opthamologists) are in short supply here in France so it’s not unusual to have to wait 6 months for a rendezvous – mine is booked for April 24th).  Going off on another tangent and knowing the French are infamous for poorly constructed and out of date websites it was a pleasant surprise to find these guides, perhaps they’ve been there for ages?  Perhaps  I’m the last person to find these?  I’d love to hear  if you’ve already been using them or even found them via my blog?  Have you discovered some interesting walks? Oh, I should just mention that the detailed information (usually printed on the reverse of the hard copy)  for each walk is not included in the ‘on-line’ version… I guess ‘they’ still want to sell some hard copies and so you’ll need to buy one if you want this info!

Getting back on track… Having decided to start the walk from the chemin de Beaupuy I have to confess that we didn’t actually climb this steep lane as there wasn’t anywhere near that we could conveniently and safely park the car so we drove almost to the top of the hill before we found a suitable parking space. This happened to also be in-view of the ruins of an ancient Chateau and it’s surrounding dilapidated outbuildings.  It looked like it must have once been a very impressive estate and although there was a ‘Propriété Privée’ notice we couldn’t help but investigate.

Chateau near Beaupuy

We were both really taken with the property and phrases like ‘crying shame’, ‘how can it be left to just decay’, ‘who does it belong to’ and many more were uttered as we ambled around the ruins.  Even though it was obviously beyond Restoration you could still envisage what it must have been like in it’s glorious heyday.  There were so many lovely and appealing aspects to the buildings that we spent a good hour nosing around.  There wasn’t much left of what must have  been a beautiful garden, yo’d have to have a good imagination to envisage it restored but, there were a few hints of its loveliness including a magnificent and very old Cedar Tree. This tree with its wide-spreading branches would overwhelm most ordinary gardens but it was just perfect here.  And the views were to-die-for; on one side it gave an amazing Panoramic over the metropolis that is the city of Perigueux down below and on the other, far-reaching views over rolling countryside with the tiny hamlet of Beaupuy in the foreground; you just know that painters would love it up here!

I knew there was something on this hill and I’m so glad I finally got to see it.  Today I’ve spent hours googling trying to find out more about the property but to no avail, there were plenty of references to another nearby chateau, ‘Chateau L’Eveque‘ but nothing about this Chateau.  I’m not even sure of its name, I’m guessing because it’s near the hamlet of Beaupuy it perhaps has the same name.  The only reference I could find was a site about a local family with the name of Beaupuy.  Not sure if they’re anything to do with the Chateau but you never know, the site that I found certainly doesn’t mention them as being the owners at any time.  Perhaps you know more about the Chateau?  Please get in touch if you have any information?  Don’t get me wrong we’re not in a position to buy it (no way, José), just curious?  Anyway, here’s a few pics I took before we dragged ourselves away for our planned walk.

It wasn’t until I started to write my blog that I realised there were another couple of photos I could have taken that would be nice, ie a view of the hill from ‘down-below’ and a couple of the gatehouses and entrance to the Chateau.  I have to go back near here tomorrow so will take a few more and re-post them.

The rest of the walk was very enjoyable despite the grey weather and although we managed to go off-the-beaten-track at one point.  We came-up against an impenetrable fence blocking our way so a slight detour was made which involved hacking our way up-through a densely wooded hillside where we managed to to re-discover the track and eventually back to the car after just a couple of hours.

I know I keep saying it but I have to add that I really must loose a bit of weight,  the difference  in my fitness from a couple of years ago was very noticable when we came to a decent incline. I quit smoking just over 12 months ago so it’s definitely the weight that’s making me unfit.   Walking is great but I think I’ll get back on the Xbox 360 Kinect tomorrow with a vengeance!!! Anyone fancy a duel workout on the Fitness Evolved – My Gamertag is Anglaisdame, send me yours and we can get fit together

Masses of Mistletoe!

There are dozens of mapped and waymarked walks around La Treille and we’ve covered quite a number of them over the last few years; many, I’ve documented on this blog (you’ll find them archived under the ‘Walking‘ tab under the Categories section). I thought I’d gotten quite adept at reading the yellow and green posts that mark these paths; so much so that today we confidently set off  ‘sans carte’ on what was supposed to be a short jaunt of perhaps just 3 of 4km. I hadn’t even put my proper walking boots on, just my flat leather boots. I’m paying for it now with sore aching feet having walked around 20km.  We obviously took a wrong turn and mis-read a couple of the signposts.   Is it just me or are these signposts deliberately a little vague, does anyone else have problems, would love to hear how others get on with following walking maps/signposts?  I’d love one of those ‘all-singing, all-dancing’ GPS thingymejigs but they’re so expensive… Had one in my Amazon Wish List for ages, ever optomistic that someone will treat me!

Actually, I have to hold my hand up to kind of knowing what we’d done as I’m sure moh would never have agreed to walk so far today.

Borie-Petit (honest)

Borie-Petit info

"Read all about it"!

Fortunately it was a beautiful sunny day if a little chilly and as it turned out I reckon he’s a lot fitter than me… I was the one who had to keep stopping to catch my breath whilst climbing one of the ‘usual’ bloody hills in this area.

Champcevinel Village

Chene and charme

Randonee signpost

On the plus side we’ve probably walked-off  that huge Christmas dinner that I cooked yesterday.  Talking of which, the allure of turkey and stuffing sandwiches back home was the perfect enticement to keep us going.   There is still enough turkey left-over for the traditional cold turkey, chips and pickles tomorrow (albeit a day late)  and no doubt I’ll use the last of it for a tasty Tai-style turkey curry later in the week.

Pine processionary caterpillars

Jeff on the trek

Low winter sun

The other plus that’s come out of this impromptu trek is that I’ve managed to find the complete set of ‘Randonnée en Dordogne‘ walking maps on-line, these should come in handy for printing off when we next set-off so no excuses next time!!!

Arhh, what with winter solstice just passed we’re half-way through another ‘L’hiver français’.  Warm and comfy in our cosy gite we’re all snug as bugs in rugs.  Here’s a few more photos taken this month that I thought you might like…

Frosty Dordogne Morning

Patient Pets!

Jeff by candlelight!

Hope you all had a good Christmas and best wishes for 2012. Soon be summer!!!

ps  Oh and if you have been on any great walks around the Dordogne we’d love to hear about them via the comment box below?

pps  Don’t forget that you can subscribe to my blog and get notified of my latest posts via the RSS feed buttons!

Although I’ve put  a link to the ‘official beautiful villages’ website above, I had better point out that Saint Yrieix (pronounced Saint ear-ee-a) is not in fact officially listed on the site!  But, it definitely should be in my opinion!

It’s a shame that the weather was a bit grim the day we visited this village – quite warm for this time of year but drizzly and grey.  Still, it didn’t dampen our enthusiasm , even when we realised that we had actually been before, ironically also in the winter time when it was bitterly cold.  On that occasion we were not impressed with what we’d seen but unbeknown to us we’d completely missed the best parts; including the medieval quarter.  This time we were recommended the visit by a family visitor,  who wanted us to accompany him on a reminiscing trip after visiting St Yrieix over 30 years before in 1982. He persuaded me when he mentioned a visit to a factory shop at the Madeleine cake factory!

We set the Sat Nav knowing it would take us via ‘a scenic route’ (it’s a long story that I’ll tell you about in another post) as we were in no rush and just out for a nice ‘day out’.  The journey took about an hour and half and we’d planned our ETA for lunchtime. So, that was our first port of call.  We quickly found a lovely little restaurant ‘La Bonne Cave‘.  We checked that the staff were happy for our dog ‘Ruben’ to come inside the resto with us – fortunately the French are very ‘dog friendly’ and settled down for some traditional French fare.  We ordered the Menu de jour and at just 10,50 € I should have realised it would be a gamble.  I couldn’t believe it when the waitress placed the plate of Andouillette sausage in front of me for the Plat de jour.  Have you ever tried Andouillette sausage?  I ordered it by mistake when we first moved to the Dordogne 8 years ago and swore it would be the first and last time.  Just google it, there are some interesting sites about this stinky regional delicacy.  I dare you (if you’ve never tried it) to eat it!!!  Feeling brave I hovered my nose over it and was surprised not to find any repulsive smells being emitted, it actually smelled quite pleasant – perhaps I was just really hungry.  I broke the sausage open and the meat spilled out onto my plate like gutting a pig… no going back now! I pushed some onto my fork and tried it…  It was actually ok.  Surprised at my own courage I took a decent slug from my verre du vin rouge and went in for a second go. It actually got better the more I ate and I managed to finish it off although, I have to confess to not eating the skin.  Whether it was the vin rouge or, I’ve just got accustomed to French cuisine I’m not sure, but, I still don’t think I’d knowingly order Andouillette again in a hurry!

Moving on, we paid the bill and left.  It was now after 2.30pm, the shops were all open again but we first went for a saunter around the medieval quarter and the Romanesque church, I took a few photos but they really do not show it at its best so have not added them to the post.  We’ll come back in the Spring or Summer and take lots of photos then.  There were quite a few quaint touristy shops to browse around as well as the porcelain factory shops (after all we are in the Limousin region, famous for it’s porcelain).   I was in my element… unfortunately it’s a bad time of year for us (all our fiscal obligations arrive at once: Taxe d’habitation, Taxe Fonciéres, Taxe de Sejour and Taxe Sociaux) so I have to be frugal with the purse strings: even that gorgeous hand knitted hat set that I’d die for in a chapeauxerie (hat shop). C’est la vie!

Having ‘window shopped-out’ we made our way back to the car and headed off to find the Madeleine cake factory shop.  It was actually on the road heading home (D704) about 3.5km outside of the village.  All my good intentions went out the window and I exited the shop 15 € lighter with a bag of goodies that will no doubt be devoured within the week.

We’ll definitely be putting a date in my diary for another visit next summer – Bonne Idea!

So much choice!

I get asked quite frequently if we would mind adding these links to our website and whilst I have no problem doing so I always ponder which page to put them on?  I advertise on many sites, both ‘paid-for’ and ‘free’ and to put a link to each and every one would clutter my site and quite frankly make it look very untidy. Having said that I do feel quite guilty by not giving a reciprocal link to these directories – especially the ones that are free.  I understand the hard work that’s gone into creating some of these sites.  It’s because of this that I have decided to add a new blog post specifically for displaying these links and will update it as and when I feel we have a new deserving case.  The advantage of putting these links on a unique blog page (as opposed to just adding the link to the bottom of an inappropriate page) is that they will get picked-up by the search engines faster – thus giving more exposure on the www!  I have separated the directories into ‘Freebies’ and ‘Paid-For’:

Freebies:

• GiteFinder

Paid-For:

• Owners Direct

We’re making the most of this beautiful Autumnal weather this weekend and yesterday (Saturday 15th October) went for a leisurely walk around the lake at La Jemaye.  The temperature peaked at around 27ºC in the afternoon which caught me out as I’d put a jumper on… I felt a little ‘out of place’ as the sun had bought out a lot of other promenaders who were all sensibly dressed in summer T-shirts.  Our intention was to walk the whole perimeter of the lake but about half way around their was an ‘Interdit’ sign across what looked like the obvious path.  It felt wrong but we followed the direction and it promptly took us back the way we’d come… Oh well, never mind, it’s a good excuse to come back next week, ignore the sign and try to get all around the lake in one go. Only thing is, you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll not be half as nice as today’s been!

Oh and just in case you’re wondering what the green drink is in the glass in the last photo, it’s a ‘Perrier Menthe‘… Most refreshing, and I’ve become quite addicted to them!

Wednesday 10 August 2011 – It’s a beautiful ‘hot August night’ and we head in to Perigueux for the infamous ‘Juillet et Aout Marché de Nuit’.  I say “infamous” because for the last 2 weeks it’s been cancelled due to appalling weather here.  In fact last Wednesday (3rd August 2011) was pretty grey and dismal all day (not at all typical for August) and then at about 6.30 pm the heavens opened with what can only be described as monsoon like rainfall (it was so heavy we couldn’t see the gites from our house – about 10 meters).  We’ve seen our fair share of storms (or orages as they’re called in France) since living here and as spectacular as they are with the almost non-stop lightening and thunder we’ve never known one this bad.  Our gîte guests thought it was quite entertaining if somewhat scary but seeing the write-up the next day in the local newspaper, the ‘Sud-Ouest‘, it would appear we got off quite lightly with just a flooded kitchen!

Hitherto, back to the main subject of this post – the Marché de nuit!  We had a lovely time strolling around the cobbled streets of the Centre Historique in Perigueux.  It’s not very often we come into the city during the evening, everything looks so different, the ornate street lights highlighting the traditional yellow stone of the buildings and all the pretty lights of the market traders making it all so inviting. It is the busiest time of year for tourism and they all seem to have descended on Perigueux this evening.  The place is buzzing with a great atmosphere and everyone seems to be smiling and having a good time.  We stop-off  for a coffee a catch the marching jazz band ‘Le Grand Ordinaire‘ warming up at the next table.  I have taken a video which I posted on my FaceBook page – you can watch it by clicking this link!

Le Grand Ordinaire

We spend a good couple of hours mooching around the market and the lively ‘old centre’ before heading back to the main high street and a short walk to the car which we’ve parked on the car park at the Allée de Tourny at the top of the town near the Préfecture building.

Blvd Michel Montaigne, looking south

Blvd M. Montaigne, looking north

It suddenly struck, me as we strolled along the high street ”what a complete contrast’ it is here to the streets of some UK cities this evening.  The news we’d been watching on TV about the riots and looting in London and Birmingham etc.  Seeing our familiar ‘old towns’ being destroyed was shocking and upsetting and made me realise just how peaceful Perigueux was tonight.  I know France has had it’s own share of social problems with the Paris riots back in 2005, I just hope it never happens here!

Anyway, If you’re thinking of holidaying in the Dordogne you really must try to get to Perigueux during the Marché de Nuit season – Every Wednesday evening during July and August (weather permitting) from 8.30 pm to midnight in the Centre Historique!

It’s funny but when choosing which village or town to visit we obviously try to pick one we haven’t been to before.  Montignac, like many of these ‘hidden-gems’ we discover on arrival, is in-fact somewhere we have been before, albeit, if only passing through.  It’s starting to become a  joke between us… I guess we should be thankful that at least we can remember and that one of us isn’t starting to suffer from Alzheimer’s.  I have thought of that though and realised I can always refer back to my blog in the future to remind ourselves of where we have and haven’t visited yet!

Montignac is approximately an hour and a half from La Treille Gites and according to via michelin 97km (60 miles).  The town straddles the River Vézère, has lots of cafés, bars and restaurants but the main attraction of the town is that it is home to the world famous Lascaux caves.  I’m ashamed to say that we have not yet visited the caves due to them being a replica which has put me off and today was just a reccy visit with Ruben in tow.  One of these days I will go as according to this write-up they are pretty spectacular – even if they aren’t the original!  There was a lot of publicity around the town advertising the Festival of folklore that starts next week… another reason to make a return visit!  It was a good time to visit as the town was adorned with thousands of garlands of hand-made flower buntings draped across the streets, shop door and windows (I’ve spent many an hour myself making similar garlands for our own village festivals).  We had a promenade along the river and then headed into the ‘Vieux Quartiers’  and the ‘Circuit Historique’ to check-out the old town.  Lovely narrow cobbled streets with rickety ancient village houses again all adorned with the obligatory colourful plastic flowers. We even came across an ancient CV that looked like it hadn’t moved for decades in an overgrown back yard… I bet a few passers by would love to have a go at restoring it!

I’m sure there’s so much more to see around the town of Montignac that I’m sure we’ll be making another trip soon!

If you have time you may want to head back up the D704, turn right onto the D6089 and pop into Terrason which is also a very pretty town well worth a visit.  We made a visit to Terrasson in July 2009, you can read my blog about that too if you want!

I received an email this morning from the on-line version of the Connexion Newspaper (ex-pat journal) with a link to an interesting article that struck a chord with me.  From my previous posts you’ve probably realised that I’ve been having a bit of a battle with our local tourism board regarding registered our gites but also I’ve never been very impressed with their approach to promoting local tourism in this area… it’s obviously a nationwide problem with the whole of France according to this article.

Having a quick look through the site it’s early days but there appears to be quite easy to navigate.  Obviously Paris  is featured prominently but Aquitaine is there too, I found it by clicking the ‘Discover France‘ tab and then clicking on the section of the map with Bordeaux highlighted.  There isn’t too much info about the Dordogne yet although the Cathedral at Perigueux does get a mention.

There’s a Facebook fan page link on the site that I’ve clicked and you can too if you want to keep up-to-date with what’s happening with the site.

We’ll be keeping an eye on this site to see if it improves or gets left by the wayside.

Probably the main attraction of Aubeterre is the monolithic and subterranean church of St Jean – carved out of the white rock with excavations going back to the fifth century, the inside is enormous with a ceiling height reaching up to 20 meters at its highest. A must see!

Entrance and ticket office to St Jean

The alter inside the troglodyte church

Looking-up inside the subterranean church

As well this amazing site the village itself has justifiably earned it’s place amongst les plus beaux villages de france with it’s pretty white stone houses with wooden balconies nestled into the hillside above the River Dronne and a hidden-away shady village square where the busy café’s and bars jostle with each other for terrace space.

Lunch at a shady terrace café at Aubeterre

Wooden balconies on white stone houses

The colourful pretty streets of Aubeterre

After visiting the village and it’s church you may want to head down to the River Dronne and it’s very impressive beach to cool off and bath in the cool waters…

White sandy beach at Aubeterre sur Dronne

A game of volleyball on the sandy beach

Here’s a couple of great links to interesting sites for more information about Aubeterre… http://www.northofthedordogne.com/aubeterre.php

http://www.aubeterresurdronne.com/pages/fr/a-voir/l-eglise-souterraine.php

Although Aubeterre is in the south of the Charente region it is only 20 miles from La Treille making it an ideal day-out ‘not too far from base’  in the direction of Riberac.  Here are the directions via michelin website!

Local Tourist Office!

I’ve put off doing this for too long now and so last year (June 2010)  I resolved to ‘get with the programme’ and get La Treille Gites on the French Tourism radar.

I started the ball rolling by getting our gites into the local tourist brochure that is distributed by the ‘Maison de Dronne’ and other local Offices de Tourisme.   This involved completing a short application form along with supplying publicity photos and a payment of 150€.  We are now in the brochure or Guide de hébergements with our star rating ‘en course’ (to follow)!

My next port of call was a visit to the ‘Comité Départmental du Tourisme de la Dordogne‘.  Their office and tourist shop is in Perigueux so in October off we toddled to make some enquiries.

The Classification Inspection – We spoke to a nice man by the name of Jean-Marc LOUIS who explained what was involved.  In short it meant filling-in a couple of very long winded forms and an ‘Inspection visit’ in order to obtain a classification and a star rating which of course involved a payment.  the payment turned out to be 200€ (150€ for the first gite ‘hebergement or meublé de Tourisme’ and 50€ for the second + another 20€ if you have more).   Following the visit we received a confirmation letter a couple of weeks later advising the ‘Inspection visit’ was booked for 25th January 2011.   Unfortunately the visit was later postponed until the 8th February 2011 due to unforeseen circumstances.  Jean-Marc arrived on the day and carried-out the very thorough inspection of our gites and the property, he was here for about 3 hours in all .  He appeared very impressed and informed us that he would definitely recommend both our gites ‘Le Blé‘ and ‘Le Tournesol‘ for 3 stars and maybe even 4… how pleased were we!  After much ‘chasing-up’ via visits, letters and emails to Jean-Marc and via our local tourist office at the Maison de Dronne we finally received confirmation of our classification.  La Treille Gites had been awarded 3 stars, 4 would have been great but ‘tant-pis’ (never mind) as the French say, 3 was still good!

In the mean time I have been backwards and forwards to our local tourist office down in Tocane trying to find-out how to get our gites publicised on their website – http://www.valdedronne.com/ and to try to get some sort of icon with links that I can add to our own website to promote the fact that we now have ’3 stars’ etc.  It’s great that we’re in the brochure but that’s only giving ‘local’ coverage, we need global!!!  I’ve been dealing with a super lady in the office by the name of Patricia, she speaks excellent English and is sooo helpful.  Unfortunately I cannot say the same about some of her colleagues!  Only today I visited yet again to be met with resistance.  Patricia rang me this morning in answer to my latest queries and explained that her colleague was available this morning if I wished to come and explain my problems.  I was told that apparently I needed to pay 10€ in order to be added to the site (nowhere on the forms was this clear) and in any case it’s ‘too late’ now for our gites to be added to the site for this year.  Strange how every other website in existence on the planet can be updated minute by minute but then again ‘we are in France’ didn’t you know!!!  Sorry I’m getting sarcastic but that’s how it gets to you. I left the office feeling quite dejected and yet again frustrated that my lack of French was hindering me.  Here’s where it gets real… Patricia followed me out of the office and asked ‘how I’d got on’?  I explained my frustrations, she was very sympathetic and apologetic on behalf of her colleagues somewhat ‘ancient attitude’ and would see what she could do.  It may not happen this year but as I said to Patricia “I’m like a dog with a bone” with this and I’ll keep checking the site http://www.valdedronne.com/ to see if our gites get added to the tab ‘Où Dormir ? (where to sleep) and ultimately the ‘Location de vacances‘ tab under the elusive catégorie ‘3 étoiles‘!!!