october break travelog

thursday:
jj has vacation and p has been at work for 3 weeks so we decided it was time for a vacation, so we’re off on a road trip.
dropped off maynard, with a doggy-sitter, got rental car. picked up p from work (got fairly lost), battled paris rush hour traffic and headed to blois in the loire valley which is chateau country.
blois is a lovely town, 2 hours south of paris, with very old tudor timbered buildings. it had some christmas decorations already up and was quite beautiful. there is a big castle on the hill in town and old roads lined with stone walls.

friday:
we wandered a little in blois in the morning. jj saw an old timbered building with an apartment for rent and she was very excited. she said she wanted to live here. we headed out to the chateau at chambord. one of the more famous chateaus, it was inspired by renaissance italy. it is the largest chateau in the loire valley and king francois I built it as a hunting lodge. he only stayed there a total of 7 weeks and died before it was finished. there was a film about the chateau, complete with computer animation, which very clearly explained the unique design of the chateau. the best part was the double spiral central staircase which were 2 separate intertwining stairways that never intersect. also, the 4 rooms around the staircase were layed out assymetrically like the blades of an old fashioned windmill.

we then drove past limoges to “st leonard de noblat”, a town that had been recommended to us for its porcelain factory. since limoges didn’t seem to have any b&b’s, i booked one in this old walled town.
we went to dinner in town which was totally dead. it was an interesting old town, but apparently everybody had left on the long weekend. we ate dinner in a restaurant that stayed empty except for us and a single older lady. the b&b was also empty, except for us. it was across from an old water mill but was on the main road and a bit scary with its crooked floors, stinky bathroom, and sound of mice scrambling in the walls. jj was a bit nervous at the emptiness of the town.

saturday:
before leaving town, we went to the porcelain factory. i am not excited about limoges porcelain, but the factory had some nice modern stuff at a reasonable price. we didn’t buy anything since it wasn’t nice enough for us to think of carrying it around with us and shipping it back to the u.s.
next, we went to the town, “collonges la rouge”, which was a funky, spooky town with red stone buildings. we had to park on the outskirts of town, since the tiny roads were mostly pedestrian. there seemed to be lots of “witch” themed things, like a witch cafe and a witch souvenir shop which was appropriate since it was halloween. it was fairly quiet, with just a few tourists walking around. i think during tourist season, it would be unbearably crowded.

we then headed for the dordogne region. we had booked a b&b in a spot central to some of the spots we wanted to visit. it was a very nicely kept b&b owned by an english couple. they were very nice and hospitable and it was interesting chatting with them. they retired fairly young and decided to buy this b&b. they loved the area, but it seems the small town mayor hated english people, wasn’t very pleasant and made life a bit difficult. i think the woman was trying to figure out if she actually liked this french life...

that night we had dinner in a local restaurant, which was highly recommended by our hosts.
the dordogne is famous for food and more specifically duck and fois gras. The menu basically had duck,duck,goose (liver)and then more duck. Duck with fois gras, duck stuffed with fois gras, duck rolled in fois gras and then luckily for p, there was fish. the most exciting thing was the my appetizer. It was a salad with gesiers (gizzards), smoked magret (duck breast) and fois gras (of course). It had a little bit of lettuce and then a tomato stuffed with cabecou ice cream. cabecou is a local and famous goat cheese. You heard right - ice cream made of goat cheese. And it was AMAZING! Even jj liked it. I then had pintade (guinea hen) stuffed with (what else...)fois gras and a for dessert a bavardois (custardy dessert) of warm red fruits. Jj had the 7 hour cooked lamb and a meringue with cherries and homemade ice cream. P had a cheese course which in fact was cabecou wrapped in "brick" (thin filo like pastry) and fried. We had a bergerac wine that was quite good.

sunday:
we went to visit the “gouffre de padirac”. this is a long deep limestone cave, carved out by an underground stream. water seeping in deposited calcium to create a variety of crazy shaped structures, like underwater sea creature shapes . it was much more interesting than i thought it would be.
then we went to visit the town of rocamadour – which is a town built on a very, very steep cliff. quite impressive. also a bit touristy, with the main street full of touristy shops, but luckily, because we were in late october, not too crowded. we took a detour looking for a pharmacy that was open, trying to find some aspirin, but failed. we then went to the town of domme, which sits high above the dordogne river valley, which is famous for its stunning views. unfortunately it was dark and we couldn’t see anything. we were hoping to find dinner, thinking that a tourist town would have restaurants open, but the town was quite dead. so instead we went back to a spot on the main road which seemed to have a number of hotels and restaurants. we had a decent meal at a good price, in a hotel which looked like it had the same staff for the last 50 years. it seemed to have clients who had been there that long as well.

monday:
we decided to visit a few towns today and then head back to paris. we started by going back to domme to see the view in the light. domme was still quiet and we didn’t take the time to linger there. we went on to the town called le roc gagnac. this is another town built onto a cliff. it sat right on the main road, across from the river, but as you climbed up the narrow paths, you would find beautiful little stone houses built into the cliff. it seemed to be protected from the wind with the cliff, and had almost a tropical feel, with palm trees and vines clinging to the walls. it was a very small town, but lovely.
then we moved on to beynat, a larger medieval town built on a hill, with a castle on the top. also lovely stone houses and windy roads coming down to the river. we stopped to have lunch at a cafe. then we went to sarlat, which was totally different. it is a medieval city with large stone buildings and walls. it was much larger than the other towns and felt a bit livelier. these towns must be quite unbearable in the summer when they are packed with tourists. we had to skip seeing the last town in the group, , castelnaud-la-chapelle. we’ll have to save that for our next trip. we had to move quickly, since we had one more stop, which was the cave at lascaux. the original cave covered with prehistoric paintings on the walls was discovered by 4 teenage boys in the 1920’s. it was a huge discovery and people started visiting in droves. then the paintings started decaying with all the moisture the throngs of people were bringing in with them and the caves were closed to the public. they then spent 11 years making an exact reproduction of the cave and the paintings. it sounds weird to visit a replica, but, in addition to seeing prehistoric paintings is the allure is to see if looks like a real cave (though of course, one can’t say whether it looks exactly like the original). also, wonderful is to imagine being a teenager making such an important archeological discovery.

we headed home and were back in paris in 6 hours. jj had been a little spooked at being in some of these totally deserted towns and felt great relief to see the living beings out on the street in paris. Print this post