Liz, thankyou so much for all the wonderful information you armed us with about day trips from St Pardoux la Riviere! We’re just blown away by what a gorgeous area the Dordogne is and it’s been so helpful having your notes. We studied them for places that appealed to all of us to visit and then combined as many as we could into manageable day trips covering more than one attraction if possible. We’re pretty pleased with how much of the territory we’ve managed to cover in the short time we’ve been here though there are many wonderful things we’ll just have to rely on you to tell us about!
Today we headed further away East to Chateaux Hautefort. Originally a medieval fortress (built on the site of an old Roman camp) it was transformed by the Marquis of Hautefort into an imposing stately home in the 17th Century. In the 19th Century an unbelievable formal French garden of topiared plants, plus an English stlye park was added around it. In 1929 it was in a bad way and purchased by Baron Henry de Bastard and his wife who painstakingly restored it, only to see it bun down. The Baroness (by then widowed) promptly took up the restoration process again and so we are lucky that it has been saved to enjoy today. A fascinating building with its huge rooms, fab furnishings, bakery and wood framed dome roof on the tower, and the symmetry and perfection of the gardens is awesome!
From Hautefort we drove to St Ypriex la Perche (pr, Y’yeee!!!). This is just out of the Dordogne area into Limousin, the area of France famous for producing porcelain (think Limoge!) . We visited the church which was unexpectedly impressive and then tracked down the four roomed shop on Liz’s list hat has porcelain goodies stacked from floor to ceiling everywhere! Some lovely stuff here and even some treasures of Limoge pottery at more reasonable prices. I’m not usually into forking out for luxuries but the work is exquisite so I’m now the proud owner of a small piece.
From here we drove to check out the fairytale Chateux of Jumilhac le Grand which has links to Richard the Lionheart. Well, if I thought I saw Sleeping Beauty’s castle hiding in the undergrowth yesterday I was mistaken because here it was today!!! Turrets and towers bristling everywhere and absolutely captivating. It looks as if it would be fabulous to tour through - beautifully furnished etc, but by this stage it was getting quite late and we were feeling a little chateauxed out, so we opted for being content with the view from outside.
The rolling terrain here offers so many lovely views and the range of greens from dark forest greens through sage green crops to vivid lime green grasses....... gorgeous. Meanwile, because the weather has been so hot and sunny the sky is perfectly clear and blue though in the evenings we've seen some spectacular towering cloud formations build up and Fred's taken some fab pikkies. Today we travelled past farmhouses with massed planting of daylilies lining the drives and past acres and acres of hay paddocks - heaps mown, some still standing and some already dotted with the big round unwrapped bales. With feedlots for the animals there are very few fences and very little grazing done, so the crops just connect without interruptions, although today was our big day to spot walnut groves everywhere!
Pasta and salad at home tonight was perfect. We've loved seeing the big fresh bunches of French radishes for sale everywhere and have enjoyed lots of them, but tonight had a taste test with a bunch of mixed colour radishes ...... phew! I'd looked in the travel book for cheeses of the region and discovered something resembling a cheddar which I found today in the little shop in town; Cantal Juene and very yummy it was with a cracker and Rose before dinner - grainier than a rubbery NZ cheddar and good flavour (and we noticed it was pasteurized!)
We've found everyone here in the Dordogne region very helpful even though we can only sensibly manage 1/2 a dozen useful French words. Most people selling tickets, entries or goods have enough basic English to ply their trade adequately as long as you don't try to get into conversation outside of the transaction (which is a real frustration to Fred who of course wants to engage with them). The women at the superette are great and always pleased to see us with enough to English to be able to say"exchange?" when I returned with the receipt and a roll of paper towels and took from the shefl a packet of toilet paper.....! The lady at La Poste was struggling a bit but finally twigged to Nouvelle Zelande, the boys at the internet cafe have enough English to manage as did the girl at the pizza shop, but the hairdresser where Fred went for a haircut had absolutely no English, so just as well her friend had popped in and could help out because she was sweet enough to stay late and do the job as we couldn't make another time work (not being a big job probably helped :-).
We've been absolutely amazed in both Italy and France how many Pharmacies there are! Even the timiest towns seem to have at least one. But a big difference we've noticed coming from Italy is the number of coiffure establishments here in France!!! There are three in St Pardoux la Riviere which only has two little streets of shops! The other thing we've noticed here in France is, of course, the pampered pet dogs. So many little (and some not so little) pooches and no worries about them being in cafes, on buses, trains or cruise boats....! Another difference between Italy and France is in the gelatos/glaces. If you're thinking of going big on icecream consumptions over here, do it in Italy where they're thick and creamy and so big it's amazing they stay perched on the cones! Here we've resorted to buying Magnums form the superette!Another suprise here is how difficult it is to identify the little towns you drive into. If you don't spot the tiny (sometime non-existant)wooden sign before the town, you probably won't know where you are till you drive past the sign saying you're leaving the town; at least you know you've been there (though GPS is a lifesaver for this).
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