2013 Euro Vacation

Walking in the Dordogne

After leaving our chateau in Bordeaux, we headed by car to the small village of Creysse. While planning the road trip we discovered (just in time) that there are two places named Creysse, about 150 Km apart – we had earlier arranged to drop off the rental cars at the wrong one, but a quick series of phone calls to the rental company finally sorted it out. Our accommodation was in a hotel-restaurant called Le Auberge de L’Ile – nice little place with really good food – the food was to be a feature of this walking segment – all of the hotels chosen by the travel company that organised the walk itinerary (Inn Travel) were excellent, and featured great food and plenty of it. No chance of dieting or losing weight, despite all the day time walking. The next day’s walk was to Lacave, via the very quaint mediaeval village of Mayrinhac-Le-Francal. In Lacave we stayed alongside L’Ouysse river (a tributary of the Dordogne) in a beautiful hotel, named for a ruined bridge adjacent to it - Le Pont de L’Ouysse. Their restaurant had a Michelin star so the food and wine were excellent, if a tad pricy. But “in for a centime, in for a Euro …”, and we managed to eat and drink enough to do our bit to stimulate the French economy in this little area. Next day we walked to a belvedere overlooking the Dordogne river via the small village of Pinsac (which we went through at least twice due to taking a few wrong turns), passing a trufferie along the way. Next day’s walk followed the Ouysse to the hilltop town of Cales where we ate more excellent four course meals which would have fed a small army. Thus fortified we set off for the last day’s walk to Rocamadour, a seriously picturesque town which was on the old Middle Ages pilgrims path to Spain. The walk was fairly easy along the river valley until we reached our destination and had to walk the final few Kms to our hotel, up the very steep main street and then another Km or so out of town. There is a steep walk up the hill past the Stations of the Cross which the more penitent pilgrims would walk on their knees; however, none of our party felt the need to try this approach. Once more, excellent food and wine at the hotel, so all of those calories burned off by walking were quickly replaced.
We spent a great morning at the Rocamadour Raptor Park - they have a wide variety of hawks, eagles, parrots, owls and even vultures and condors. Twice a day they have a show where a large number of the birds are released, then return to do various tricks guided by their trainers. Very impressive and the birds seemed to really enjoy it.

Creysse - dog's canal access for a swim

Creysse - Hotel Auberge de L'Ile

Bird house

Walkers resting on green pathway

Hotel Pont de L'Ouysse

Narrow iron bridge - part of walk to Pinsac near Lacave

Large and noisy bullfrog

Mediaeval church and house in Mayrinhac

Mediaeval mill working near Cales

Typical mill weir on the Ouysse

Typical walk scenery along the Ouysse valley

Rear of mill

Old mill wooden gears

Shutters and sundial on typical village house

Ruins of Pont de L'Ouysse with storm and Chateau in background

Snail marks the trail to Rocamadour

Roof repairs in Cale

Swans in mill stream

Hawk finds victim at Rocmadour raptor park

Typical stone wall

Truffle trees - Keep Out !

More typical walk scenery

Clever vulture breaks egg with stone

Huge vulture at Rocamadour raptor park

Vulture walks over our legs

Wall detail along one of the walks

Village view in Cales

Concrete fence posts and rails - no termite problems!

Eagle flying overhead

Picturesque Rocamadour sits above the valley

Down-town Rocamadour

Rocamadour from castle ramparts

Vulture has nearly landed

Did you call me an old buzzard?

Bordeaux and Chateau la France

After great difficulty locating the rental car drop off location at Lisbon, we caught an Easyjet flight to Bordeaux to meet up with a group of friends for the next phase of our trip. Bordeaux was much more interesting than we expected, with the old part of the city containing many fine buildings, housing lots of restaurants and up-market shopping.
Having picked up a large mini-bus next day
to carry everyone, we headed off to Chateau La France, near Beychac-et-Caillaux, about 30 Km from Bordeax, and not far from St Emilion. The Chateau was excellent, and had a Cave underneath with all of the wines produced by the vineyard on which it is located. We managed to sample all of them on the first night and continued to do so for the remainder of the stay. Some excellent meals were enjoyed, thanks in large part to Roland and his gift for shopping and cooking, and despite his execrable command of French! The winery has adopted a giant rooster (le grand Coq in French) as their emblem, and a lot of pixels were consumed photographing it from various angles.

A day trip to Arcachon on the coast was interesting, and included a walk up and down a huge sand dune which is engulfing the forest.

We had two excellent lunches organised by Bev - one at Chateau Grand Barrail about 2 Km from St Emilion, was outstanding. We also had a wine tour of Chateau Lascombes in the Margaux appellation, followed by a lunch in the nearby village. Too much to write up in detail, but some photos below give a flavour of this part of the trip.