Carcassonne to Barcelona - Day 13

Sunday, September 18th

      Today actually started today about 3:30 a.m. with the passing of a rumbling street sweeper strobing its red lights across the ceiling and loud wake-me-up beep-beep-beeping as it backed up to swish another swath past the room if the first pass hadn't done the job of interrupting sleep.

      That was close-followed by a mirthful late-night group calling back and forth to each other as the wove their way down the alley outside the window. The inebriated serenade was succeeded by at least two different garbage trucks, insuring that all the trash was emptied from the dumpster containers by shaking them vigorously.

      Soon after that the clattering growl of small European motorcycles preceded the alarm clock, which was set for 6:20. We shrugged into our clothes and hauled our suitcases down the stairs, through the alley, and into the lobby of the hotel, where we found some members of our group already waiting.

      Two taxis arrived at 6:50 to load luggage and passengers for the trip through the cobbled streets of old Carcassonne before they were closed to vehicular traffic for the day. It was only about a 15 minute ride to Le Gare Carcassonne, where we had a 45 minute wait for the first leg of today's train trip from Carcassnonne to Narbonne. The route took us smoothly and silently toward the Spanish border along the shoreline of southwestern France, often with water on both sides of us. We were entertained by the sight of windsurfers and kiteboarders taking advantage of the protected bays and strong winds.

      The second leg of the ride was on the TGV ( in French: Train a Grande Vitesse, which simply means "high-speed train"), and the scenery close to the windows was a green blur as the countryside rushed by. The precisely laid jointless track made the ride so smooth that except for the view out the windows it would have felt like we were barely moving.

      The last hour and forty-five minute segment from Figueras to Barcelona was also a high speed train, reaching speeds up to 140 km/hour, but the track was not nearly as smooth. The cars bumped, lurched, and swayed as we hurtled along, but classical music and Pavarotti singing opera through the speakers soothed the ride.

       It was a short ride in heavy traffic from the train station to the Caldonian Hotel on Gran via de les Cortes Catalanes in downtown Barcelona. The taxi driver, who in some earlier incarnation must have been a Le Mans participant, wove in and out between slower vehicles with great finesse, His side view mirrors often only inches from those he was passing on one side and those on the parked cars at the edge of the street. Since I had not observed any dings, scratches, or dents in the taxi while getting in, I only grunted and screamed internally, but was immeasurably relieved when we reached our destination unscathed.

      After a short rest we met Bill and Miriam in the lobby, and the four of us took another taxi to the Plaça de Catalunya, one of Barcelona's large squares. 

     There we caught the double-decker Red Line hop-on-hop-off tourist bus, one of three tourist bus lines that drive loops through the city.

Each passenger is offered a set of ear-bud headphones, and every seat has a place to jack in. You can listen to a narrative about each landmark in your choice of Catalan, Spanish, French, English, Italian, Russian, German, Japanese, Portuguese, or Chinese!

      For an hour and a half we rode through the city, passing the famous pedestrian street La Rambla, 

along the waterfront and the huge Maremagnum shopping center built out over the water, 

marveling at the number of really large sailing and motor yachts at the harbor marinas, out past the different venues for the 1992 Summer Olympics, and up Montjuïc where the neo-baroque Palau Nacional (National Palace) houses the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. 

Its collection includes Roman, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque art as well as 19th and 20th century works of art.

      It was well after dark by the time we got back, and the four of us had a satisfactory dinner at a tapas bar near the hotel before calling it a day.

Day 12 - Carcassonne - Our Last Day in France

Saturday, September 17th

          It's about a half day drive from Beynac through Sarlat, Gordoun, Montauban, and Toulouse to the truly ancient walled city of Carcassonne. The site has been occupied since at least 3500 B.C., and the Romans fortified the hilltop around 100 B.C.

          As we approached, our first view of the old city walls was across open green fields, the walls and towers impressive in the late afternoon sun.

          Following the turn by turn directions we had been given, we found no way into the old walled section of the city where our hotel was located, but instead found our progress stopped at a modern lift-gate next to a pre-fab booth manned by someone who asked the name of our hotel before raising the gate and told us to park next to the city wall itself.

          The attendant called for transportation for Bill and the suitcases, and directed us to walk along the outside of the walls to the ancient main gate, cross the moat, through the inner gate, across the square, though the next gate, and just up the main street ot the top of the hill, where we should turn left for a few yards to find the hotel.

           Except for special circumstances, no vehicles are allowed during the daylight hours on any of the very narrow cobblestone streets of the old city. The shop lined streets, the width of alleyways, are crowded elbow to elbow with pedestrian tourists. It reminded me very much of the similar steep streets of Mount St. Michel in Normandy. 

          Our French friends Christine and Uili, fresh from a week's vacation in Corsica, had made the five hour drive from their home in Upie, France that morning, and were waiting to greet us with big smiles and hugs.They decided to go with Jane and me for a walk though the old town to explore the walls.

           We crossed yet another draw bridge and passed through the barbican of the second layer of defenses, exploring a bit of the fortified bastion. We wandered back out and down a side street, finding an old stone stairwell that led to an open area perhaps twenty yards wide between the inner and outer walls of the city. We walked along the ramparts for a way, eyeing the veils of rain approaching across the valley.

Christine and Uili

          Making our way in a light drizzle back to the hotel, where we met Bill and Miriam, the six of us found our way to a square in the oldest part of town. 

     It was edged with restaurants and bistros, tables filling the whole square ... a perfect place for our last dinner in France, including omelet with mushrooms, seafood salad with bread  and goat cheese, some vin rose, and creme brulle to top it off.

Doing Dordogne - Day 11 - Sarlat, La Roque Gageac

Friday, September 16th

          This morning the four of us drove to Sarlat, 10 km east of Beynac. We headed for the old town, always the most interesting part of any village or town in the Dordogne. Sarlat is the capital city of this part of the Dordogne, its history stretching back well over a thousand years.

          Like many other towns in this region, its location close to the border between the opposing English and French during The Hundred Years War (actually a 116 year series of conflicts between 1337 and 1453) meant that it changed possession a number of times.

          We parked near the town center, and walked the narrow streets to the old town square. Off to one side was a life size bronze sculpture of three geese, in honor of the region's reputation for excellent pate foi gras.

          Then it was back along forested roads the short distance to the village of La Roque Gageac where we enjoyed a picnic lunch of crusty french bread, cheese, and a bit of wine.

          As in Beynac, in La Roque Gageac there are modern versions of the old flat bottomed boats called"gabares", available for sightseeing rides on the Dordogne River. 

Mirm and BT cruised off upstream on one of these boats while we climbed the steep village streets, ascending toward the stairs that led to old dwellings visible high on the cliffs above the town. 

           The west-facing cliffs soak up heat from the afternoon sun, gradually releasing it again late into the evenings, creating an almost tropical sub-climate for this riverside village, and we noticed abundant bougainvillea, colocasia with their big elephant ear leaves, banana plants, bamboo, and various kinds of palm trees all growing in healthy profusion.

          We were disappointed when we arrived at the upper end of the street to find a wire mesh barrier blocking access to the stairs up to the troglodyte refuges up on the cliff. In 2010 a big section of the cliff had broken away, destroying several houses. Not long after, part of one of the old masonry walls high up had also fallen through the roof of another house. 
     After the rock falls, heavy cable netting, supported by large steel I-beams had been erected at the base of the cliff above the village to protect residents from any more falling rocks, and it appears that the cliff-dwellings will not be re-opened any time in the foreseeable future.

          The view across the river and the valley was worth the climb, however, and we walked back down via a different path, arriving back at the landing just as the gabarre was tying up at the boat landing.

          Since this was our last evening staying in Beynac, we joined everyone in our travel group for dinner at the hotel restaurant for a delicious 4 course dinner on the terrace.

Doing Dordogne - Day 10 - "Les Plus Beaux Villages de France

Thursday, September 15th

          Today is small villages day! We found a map marked with a wandering 150 mile driving circuit labeled "les plus beaux villages de France"...the most beautiful villages in France. Too long by far for a single day's exploration, but we decided to do part of it, and the four of us set off in the car for another adventure.

     Belvès, is an ancient town. Early in its history a defensive tower was built, with a deep moat around it. By the 11th century it had been built into a bell tower that can been seen today. There is a cave beneath the tower where village residents could hide in case of attack by marauders.

          There were colorful decorations still strung above the intersection in front of the town hall the day we visited, left over from a festival a few days before.

      Monpazier is another ancient bastide, a fortified town from thee 1200's. It was home to Eleanor of Aquitane and Richard II of England for a time in the late 1300's.

          We strolled down the main street, window shopping in of the old part of town, and discovered a covered market stall and stone arcades with shops surrounding the old town square.

          Ken and Gail Tuley, members of our group who were wandering on their own, joined us for a drink and some refreshment under the square canvas umbrellas of an outdoor cafe. 

     Continuing our explorations, we drove through the villages of Beaumont and Issigeac, and then up a hill through hundreds of acres of grape vines to Chateau Monbazillac.

 

         As we approached the chateau we saw bunches of dark purple grapes ready for picking.

     Although both red and white varieties of grapes are grown in this valley, the wine from this region is most famous for its white grapes, which are allowed to stay on the vine until they acquire a fungus that doesn't harm the grapes, but draws the water out of them, concentrating the sugar content. These super-sugared grapes are then harvested and turned into the sweet white wine for which this region is known.

          It was late afternoon by the time we neared our starting point, and we stopped for dinner at a sidewalk cafe by the Dordogne River in the village of La Roc Gageac.

Doing Dordogne - Day 9 - 15 km Canoe Paddle

Wednesday, September 14th

      The big adventure for the day today is a 15 km canoe excursion on the Dordogne River from Vitrac downstream back to Beynac. Fueled with a breakfast of muesli and cafe-creme, we joined Charlie and Ellen from our travel group, and walked across the street from the hotel to the canoe office. The sign in the window specified that they expected you to arrive a minimum of twenty minutes before the 10 o'clock first departure. It was only 9:30, so we were not surprised to find that the office was not open yet. Two other women who wanted to rent canoes arrived about a quarter of the hour. However, when nobody had shown up by 9:55 I began to worry that we were supposed to have showed up at Vitrac instead of meeting here in Beynac.

      I scurried back across the street to the hotel office, and asked the helpful lady at the desk to call the reservation number for the canoes to see if we were in the wrong place. She assured me that someone would be arriving to pick us up promptly at 10:00. Sure enough, it was 9:59 when a small bus whipped into the parking lot motioning to the six of us to climb aboard.

     It was about a 25 minute ride on tree-lined country roads to the riverside canoe livery at Vitrac. An Australian hippy-type guy gave us a cheery greeting, and issued us life jackets and paddles. He slung a couple of canoes to slide down the river bank. Charlie and Ellen were the first to shove off, and Jane and I followed only about a minute later.

     Paddling leisurely downstream with the gentle current, we caught up with our fellow river travelers. We passed campgrounds and other canoe rental places along the way as we drifted down the Dordogne.

     In some places the banks were low, and flat farmland and vineyards stretched off to rolling hills in the near distance. The river meandered closer to the hills and the low banks became chalky cliffs. 

     We paddled past the Chateau Castelnaud high on a promontory above us where we could see the reconstructed silhouettes of several trebuchets, looking as if they were ready to hurl skull-sized boulders at us far below. 

      There were openings and caves visible as we approached the village Roc de Gageac. Sandwiched between the river and the vertical cliffs, the buildings and houses almost seem stacked on top of each other, and those that nestle up against the cliffs used the cliff itself as the rear wall.

      High above the last of the houses, a steep stairway juts out from the cliff, ascending to an opening halfway to the top where you can see masonry walls have been erected. We had read that village inhabitants long ago had used ropes, pulleys, and ladders to evacuate people and possessions to these high retreats in times of threat.

      We pulled the two canoes up on the gravel bank opposite the village, and sat on our life jackets while we shared sandwiches, fruit, and some wine between us.

      With only 8 km to travel, we slid the canoes back into the water and continued our downstream adventure. Rounding a curve we spotted Chateau Feynac, an imposing hilltop castle currently American owned.

      Another half hour down the river, traveling in the company of quite a few other canoeists we approached a riffle where much of the span of the river shallowed to a few inches, cascading with small chuckling sounds down across the underlying gravel.

      The six canoes in front of us all paddled vigorously toward the right where there appeared to be a spot on the inside of the river curve where the water was a bit smoother. IF I had used my past experience instead of assuming that those ahead of us had spotted an opening I could not yet see, I would have steered toward the outside of the river bend where water is almost always deeper. In a matter of moments I felt the bottom of the canoe scraping the rounded rocks beneath us, and seconds later we ground to a complete stop, joining all those other canoes that had preceded us.

      After hunching and crunching, and shoving on the bottom to no avail with our paddles it was obvious that I'd have to get out and wade, dragging the canoe across the shallow patch to deeper water. That was not difficult, but I had soggy shoes for the rest of the trip.

      The brochure had indicated that the trip from Vitrac to Beynac would take two and a half hours, but by the time we pulled the two canoes up on the ramp back at Beynac we had been four hours enroute.

      Bill and Miriam happened to be looking over the upper wall as we stowed our life jackets and paddles, and we posed as Bill took a picture of us with Charlie and Ellen before saying good-by to them.  

      After retreating to the room for a short late afternoon siesta (yes, that's a Spanish tradition, not French, but the principal applies well anywhere!), we rejoined Miriam and Bill for an excursion to Les Jardins Suspendu de Chateau Marquessac.

      Like other chateaux in the area, Marquessac occupies high ground overlooking the valley of the Dordogne and the river. Its grounds, however, stretch for more than three kilometers along a ridge. The elaborate topiary near the chateau, planted and sculpted in the 1800's had been neglected, overgrown, and virtually abandoned for many years, but in 2001 work began to trim the boxwoods back to their original strange, convoluted shapes. Today they fully restored. 

 

      Jane and I wandered up a roughly cobbled path away from the main gardens. Lavender and rosemary, trimmed to form a sinuous waving pattern on both sides of us as we climbed toward a high vista overlooking the river far below. We turned back at that point. Had it been earlier in the day we might have continued on through the woods along the ridge line to another belvedere at the edge of a cliff that commanded a view upsteam all the way to Roc de Gageac.

      The four of us headed back to Beynac, and descended the stairs to our favorite bistro to continue our new tradition of ordering scoops of ice cream or fruit sorbet to nibble while watching the sun drift low over the sparkling river.

Doing Dordogne - Day 8

Tuesday, September 13th

      We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast this morning. Just a little way up the street I found a tabac that offered cafe-creme and a croissant. Jane went across the street to a patisserie to get a croissant and a small orange juice, then joined me on the terrace in the bright sunshine that had rapidly dissipated the early morning fog.

      We set off up the very steep cobbled lane that we had followed on Sunday, stopping several times to rest and marvel at the vistas across the Dordogne Valley. We finally approached the Chateau de Beynac, and bought admission tickets.

      As we wandered past walls within walls and gates beyond gates, and crossed a drawbridge over a 20 foot deep pit whose bottom was covered with sharpened wooden spikes we were impressed with the attention to security.  

        As early as the 16th century they even had the capability of conducting chemical warfare. Above two inner gates there were protected wooden extensions out from the stone walls to allow defenders to dump buckets of caustic lye on attackers trying to breach the inner defenses..

     The oldest part of the fortress was the castle keep, a five story tall tower. Whoever was occupying the chateau could retreat here behind all the layers of defense, and pull up the ladders through a narrow trap door, making it very difficult to reach. The English King Richard the Lionheart used the castle keep as his residence for several years after capturing Chateau de Beynac.

      The Dordogne River marked the approximate political boundary between the English and the French during the Hundred Years War, and Chateau de Beynac in spite of its impressive layered defenses had been captured and changed possession back and forth between the English and the French nine different times over the years.

      We explored the various levels of the chateau, including the quarters for the soldiers, the spiral staircases, the huge kitchen, the baronial living quarters, and on up to the topmost ramparts. From there it was a dizzying vertical view to the village and river far, far below.

      We stopped for lunch at the restaurant "Les Ramparts de Chateau" before heading partway back down the same steep lane we had ascended earlier. We came to an overlook where the path split, and taking the left branch we descended to the old port of Beynac on the riverside, and then walked back to the hotel along a welcome flat path along the edge of the river.

      Late in the afternoon we met Bill and Miriam to walk down to the riverside dock across the street from the hotel, where we boarded a "gabarre", a replica of a river boat used here in the 1800's (with the exception that this one was powered by two large, quiet, but powerful Yamaha outboard engines.) The boat, filled to about half its 50 passenger capacity, moved almost silently upstream from Beynac past the port toward the castle of Castelnaud on a fifty minute trip that also provided beautiful views of the castles of Fayrac and Marqueyssac before reaching a shallow part of the river and turning back again.

      We turned our evening meal around backwards, eating ice cream and sipping peach wine at a riverside bistro before hopping in the car for a short ride to "Auberge des Chateaux", where all four of us dined on omelets and shared a carafe of nice local red wine.

     Our last experience of the evening was seeing Chateau de Beynac silhouetted against a fading orange western sky as a full moon rose above a wooded ridge in the east.

Doing Dordogne - Day Seven

Monday, September 12th

      A fine mist was floating down from low-lying gray clouds this morning, and fog obscured the far side of the river and the hilltop behind the hotel. We ate a light breakfast in the hotel dining room: cafe au lait, granola, and a small glass of orange juice.

      Looking across the road, we could see small trailers arriving and canopies being set up along both sides of the parking lot next to the river...a much smaller version of the St. Cyprian Sunday market day. Bill, Miriam, Jane and I spent a little while ambling up one side for a hundred yards and back down the other.

     We bought three small 3" wheels of Rocamadour cheese for 60 cents each, one of goat-cheese and two of cow cheese, all of them very soft, almost gooey.

      Stashing the cheese, a couple of long, skinny loaves of crusty bread, and a couple of bottles of wine in the car, we drove east along the riverside highway toward the town of Sarlat.

      Sarlat is one of the towns of the Perigourd region known for pate-foi-gras, goose-liver-paste, considered a delicious delicacy. Miriam had read that somewhere near the middle of town was a statue of a goose, and she wanted her picture taken beside it, so we turned off the main road toward the old town center.

      Passing along the cobbled street we saw many old houses and stores crowding up against narrow sidewalks. Before long I saw ahead a sign blocking all traffic, and an arrow to the left announcing a divertisement...in other words a detour. The left turn was the only option, and it led right past another permanent sign indicating that this road did not allow vehicular traffic. I had no choice. As I drove cautiously along very narrow streets and made several tight turns on the indicated detour I had to be very careful of herds of pedestrians, ambling along. Like flocks of sheep, they parted only slowly and reluctantly as the car crept past.

      We came to an open square in the oldest part of town, where tourists and locals alike were shopping, walking, or sitting under large umbrellas in sidewalk cafes sipping coffee, heads turning to see the unexpected car passing through their exclusive domain. Still following the detour arrows, we completed our auto tour of the old town and found our way back to the main road, but never did spot the stone goose we had set out to find.

      With Bill consulting his maps and navigating again, we drove south from Sarlat to the town of Domme. Here the town location was plainly chosen with defense in mind. It is high on a very steep sided bluff. A circuitous road climbs the slope at an angle, turning sharply at the top to pass through a massive stone gate in the walls of the bastide, or fortress. 

     Many of the streets were so narrow that the car would just barely fit between the walls of the stone houses on either side. The center of the town is flat, however, and we found a temporary parking place so that we could look around a bit. Just a block away one side of an airy, tree lined plaza ends at a stone balustrade with a 200 foot drop below. There was a spectacular view out across the valley of the Dordogne. I paused for a few minutes to listen to a Belgian musician playing a hammered dulcimer.

      Back down the road from Domme, we traveled a short distance to the edge of the Dordogne River at Vitrac. Opening all of the car doors to enjoy the cool, gentle breeze we nibbled a leisurely lunch of crunchy french bread, Rocamadour cheese, crispy apples, and plastic cups of vin rose.

      There is a put-in spot here, and you can rent a canoe or kayak to paddle or float for 15 km down the river to Beynac. I'd like to do that!

      We continued our drive at 1:00 pm toward the grotto at Rouffignac to see some cave paintings. As we approached the town of Les Eyzies on the banks of the Moustier River we began to see tall sandstone cliffs, undercut by the river to make strange overhangs and narrow ledges. In many spots there were houses built beneath the overhanging rock and excavated back into the soft stone.

      We saw many openings high up on the cliffs that had obviously been cut out from the stone, and probably occupied long ago. At several places it was clear that people long ago had sheltered in these sheer cliffs and caves by pulling up their possessions, food, and even livestock, and then pulling up the ladders to take refuge from marauders traveling up the river.

      It was just an hour's drive to the cave at Rouffignac. We bought tickets for admission, and after a short wait joined others on a short walk into the wide, low mouth of the cavern. 

There we climbed up and settled onto narrow padded benches facing forward on two small open railroad cars.

      Our tour guide hopped on the front, and with a twist of the control lever started the electric engine train moving on the track along an ancient water-carved tunnel that descended gently into the darkness. A single bright bulb on the front lighted the tracks ahead and cast an indirect glow on the limestone walls around us, illuminating layers of strange, small bulbous formations that were suggestive of malformed growths of some exotic fungus.

      On and on we traveled, deeper and deeper, while the tour guide kept up a continuous patter of facts about the cave, the formations, the early inhabitants....all in French, of course, which meant that I understood perhaps every twentieth or thirtieth word... not enough to construct any consistent meaning.

      Far into the cave he pointed out places where cave bears had dug and scuffed out curved depressions as places to snooze away the cold winters. Nearby were lots and lots of parallel vertical marks on the walls where bears had stretched and scratched with their big claws.

      Somewhat over 3 km from the entrance we came to the first prehistoric cave drawings. Here cro-magnon men from 15,000 years ago had scratched beautifully executed outlines of wooly mammoths into the stone walls of the cave. 

 

      Farther along we came to animal drawings on the wall, done not in charcoal, but with pieces of manganese dioxide, used like black chalk. There were horses, several rhinoceros outlined, and a whole parade of mammoths.

Continuing even farther we came to a wider place with a low flat ceiling that was covered with the dark outlines of mammoths, bison, horses, and ibex. One horse was amazingly lifelike, drawn full scale. Most of the beautiful profiles were two to three feet from head to tail. 

     We stayed for awhile, marveling at the detail and accuracy of the beautiful drawings, and wondering about what might have motivated people 15,000 years ago to venture so far into darkness and danger, their way lit only by the dim glow of primitive oil lamps to draw these mysterious outlines.

By the time the electric train had made the long ascending trip back to the mouth of the cave a full hour had past, and the cool air outside the cave felt warm by comparison.

      We passed by a goose-farm on the way back, and stopped by the side of the road to watch as several hundred gray geese waddled over to the fence toward us. I guess they were expecting us to give each one of them their several-times-a-day force-feedings. I was happy to disappoint them!

      As we waited to get together with Bill and Miriam, Tish, Robert, and Nancy for dinner we saw two colorful hot air balloons, drifting a few hundred feet above the river, glowing brightly in the late afternoon sunlight.

Doing Dordogne - Day Six

Sunday, September 11th

      We woke to the sound of church bells. Oh yeah, it's Sunday! They faded away, but came back a half hour later as if to say, "Yes, we know you went back to sleep and ignored us the first time, but now we're going to continue this melodious clamor until you get up and get ready to observe Sunday properly!"

      We decided to skip breakfast. We joined Bill and Miriam in the car, and headed down along the banks of the Dordogne River about 10 km to the town of St. Cyprian where we had heard there was a Sunday market.

      We found a parking place at the edge of the town center. The main street was blocked off to vehicular traffic, but there were hundreds and hundreds of people crowded shoulder to shoulder, ambling along congenially, perusing the amazing variety of goods in the vending stalls that were stretched side by side for perhaps a half mile along both sides of the street.

      There were Nigerian vendors selling cloth purses, leather belts, incense, key chain charms and hats. There were vendors selling 23 different kinds of olives. There were booths where you could buy ten or twelve kinds of bread, or 15 different kinds of pastry, and others that offered a dozen or more kinds of cheese. We each bought a large cinnamon-raisin roll to eat while strolling.

There were table cloths and meat and fish and baskets and fruit. There were bottles of wine and mounds of exotic spices and shoes and scarves and sweaters.

      There were onion sets and fresh carrots, tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, beans, corn, and watermelon. There were bananas and peaches and apples and plums strawberries and pomegranates and kiwi.

There were buskers playing guitars and sitars and Peruvian quenas and flutes. There were baskets of flowers, a tinkling fountain, and huge curved pans of paella, and loungers sipping espresso at sidewalk cafes. The market was filled with sounds and smells and sensation. What an amazing morning!

      Heading back toward the east, we turned away from the Dordogne River just before reaching Beynac on a one-lane road that wound up through dense woods that formed a leafy green tunnel, emerging high on the open bluffs that overlook the river. We cautiously navigated the narrow lanes that constituted the main streets of the tiny village of Cazenac, then back down again by an alternate route that brought us to Beynac. We took the single street straight up the hill through the town, through woods again, and up to grassy meadows. 

     Doubling back toward the river, the road ended at the Chateau de Beynac, a forbidding-looking fortified castle at the edge of the cliff overlooking the town and the river far below. It looks impregnable, but in 1199 AD Richard the Lionheart of England captured it by sending his men to scale the 600 foot cliff walls at a spot no one had thought to defend.

     We found a nice little cafe just outside the castle keep, with an open terrace where we enjoyed lunch before heading back down to the hotel for a much needed nap.

      Feeling refreshed, Jane and I ventured out in the late afternoon to explore the steep, narrow cobblestone streets of Beynac that wend their way upward so sharply that it seems at times as if you would be in danger of sliding back down were it not for the small, rough stones used for paving. Eventually we found ourselves back at the Chateau de Beynac, and spent some time exploring the portcullis gate and the ramparts before heading back again down paths and streets not quite so steep as those we had climbed.

     Later we found a small open air bistro overlooking the river. The sun dipped below the gray clouds that had been hovering overhead all day, turning the edges delicate shades of pink that almost matched the color of the vin rose we sipped while dined on delicious, moist fluffy omelets.

Doing Dordogne - Day Five

Saturday, September 10th

      A leisurely start this morning. We ambled across the street from our hotel in Lescar to a large shopping center for cinnamon-raisin rolls and coffee, then back to finish packing. It was close to 10:00 am before we joined Miriam and Bill in the car and headed out. 

     I had programed the French-speaking GPS to avoid the main highway, opting for country roads that would take us to the town of Roquefort where we hoped to sample some of the famous cheese of the same name. 

     I quickly got used to the patient French female voice giving instructions about the frequent traffic circles and specifying the first or second or third exit from each. After much driving according to the GPS directions, it appeared that we were trending more and more toward the east instead of north, and getting farther away from our destination in Roquefort. 

     I kept insisting that the GPS was correct and that we should trust it, but was at last out-voted three to one, and turned off the GPS. Bill and Jane consulted their maps, and giving directions in clear English navigated us back onto a more northerly course, eventually allowing us to arrive around 2:00 pm at the small town of Roquefort (with accompanying jokes about beginning to smell the stinky cheese). 

     The whole town seemed asleep or deserted, but near the town center we found a Tabac, a combination tobacco shop/bar that was open, and went in to ask about where to find some good Roquefort cheese to buy.

      To their dismay and my amusement, the owners informed them that we were not in THAT Roquefort, but one of the other three towns in France that are ALL named Roquefort. Consulting the maps, they showed us that the GPS had been taking us to another one of the spurious Roqueforts, and that "le village de fromage" was at least four or five hours drive away from our present location!

      Back in the car again, Bill did a great job of navigating and giving directions from his maps, and we all gave a cheer as we entered the valley of the Dordogne River. An hour later we were pulling into a small public parking lot stretched out along the eastern bank of the Dordogne in the town of Beynac, which lies crowded along the shoreline of the river and clings to precipitous rocky slopes slanted up to the Chateau de Beynac at the highest point above the town.

      One cobblestone street climbs up through the village toward the castle. Narrower, steeper streets suitable only for pedestrians branch off in different directions, leading to large stone houses and small cottages built on seemingly impossible slopes.

      We have a lovely room with a floor to ceiling window that opens onto a french balcony, which is really not a balcony at all, but merely a railing across the lower part of the window to keep the incautious from falling to the street below. This will be our home for the coming week. Tomorrow we'll visit a country market day about 10 km down the river.

Friday, Day Four

Friday, September 9th

        This morning we walked a few hundred meters to Carrefour, a very large shopping center, where we found a nice patisserie. We each ordered cafe au lait, and small baguette with butter and jam. A perfect light breakfast for a couple of Euros.

      This morning we loaded two cars full of people for the day's adventure to Biarritz on the west coast of France near the Spanish border. It's a 116 km trip, and during most of the hour and a half it took we could see the impressively jagged peaks of the Pyrenees off in the distance to our left.

      We followed instructions to the main train station and waited a short while to be joined by Helen, a young woman from Richmond, Virginia who came to Biarritz for World Vision to start an outreach program for young people. She has been here for some time, and plans to stay, since she met and married Phillipe, a French civil engineer.

      We followed her pumpkin-orange little Renault through the winding streets and around many traffic circles, descending eventually past large elegant homes to a narrow road that skirts the ocean along the bottom of a steep cliff. There is a sea wall along the waterfront here, reinforced with a wide rip-rap of large black boulders. Just beyond the rocks that protect the shoreline there is a sandy bottom that probably forms a narrow beach when the tide is low.

      Large, long swells, perhaps three meters from trough to crest came rolling in from the Bay of Biscay, which is merely a slight curve to the western coast of France, really just the Atlantic Ocean. Hundreds of surfers could be seen sitting on their boards, floating up and over each passing swell, waiting for the perfect wave. When it was perceived that an approaching wave had just the right slope and height, surfers would swing around, belly-flop on their boards, paddling as fast as they could with their hands. Those who had timed it just right would be propelled forward down the slope of the wave, and with a quick grab and lurch would leap to their feet, suddenly transformed into darting, swooping dancers on the curling waves.

      Appropriately, the place where Helen took us for lunch was "Les Surfers". We all sat at one long table facing the water. The wall closest to the seawall was open to the breezes so we could see the surfers, the waves, and the ocean beyond as we ate lunch.

      Jane and I shared Merlu, a plate for two. The English name for this fish is hake. It was both ugly and delicious, the body split into two attached gently broiled fillets drenched in garlic butter and judiciously sprinkled with herbs just behind the dark head with its gray eyes and gaping sharp-toothed mouth.

      After lunch Helen and Philippe led the four-car caravan on a wandering tour of Biarritz, past the casinos and cliff-top mansions, along steep curving cobblestone streets lined with shops offering overpriced elegant goods for wealthy customers, down along the waterfront with small beaches nestled in rocky coves, and up again through more modest neighborhoods. We stopped for a short visit at their new church, a small rented space in a building shared with a surfers' hostel.

      An almost-full moon rose above the low hills in front of us as we headed back toward our hotel after a long day. Tomorrow is a travel day from Lescar east to Beynac in the valley of the Dordogne.