November 27th

27^th November Sarlat to St Cyprien in the Dordogne

Another foggy grey day when the bitterness gets into the bones and you wish for significantly more natural insulation, but we warmed the truck up before we left, filled water bottles risking the loss of fingers through frostbite or just plain snapping off if knocked against a hard surface. We didn’t have very far to drive to our first destination, we were on the road by just after 10 and drove the 12 or so kms to Beynac et Cazenac  another cute little medieval village which has a wonderful chateau up on a cliff top, overlooking the Dordogne River. Unfortunately the chateau was closed for the season, but we had a nice time exploring the steep little streets, and up at the chateau it was possible to look around a bit at the outside parts, and of course admire the views down over the village and valley.

We had a cup of coffee which really was necessary to defrost, fingers and noses truly at risk, despite possum merino gloves and scarves (plus other clothes of course).

We had soup and fresh bread back at the truck before driving on to Castelnaud yet another grand chateau of the area, again perched cliff-top both both the beauty of the view and for defence purposes. The Chateau de Castelnaud was altered during the 100 year war (1337-1453) and made impregnable at that stage. Apart from being a cool castle in itself, the major attraction was that it has an impressive display of medieval weapons both small arms and the huge wooden sling shot types called, the bombard, mangonel and trebuchet are on display in the courtyard. Unfortunately at this time of the year the usual displays and demonstrations aren’t going, but we did get to see several excellent videos which demonstrated the use of the trebuchet amongst other things, and gave great information (English sub titles). They said it was really effective compared to previous weapons for penetrating the thick defensive walls of the castles, but that they could only sling 2 shots an hour when operated by skilled users!!! I thought no wonder the war lasted a hundred years (or more if you see the dates).  In fact on one upper wall there was a pock in the stonework, probably not more than six inches deep and a foot round and next to it a sign which said “mark left by a German mortar strike in 1944” (well it was actually in French, but that’s what it meant). I don’t know how far away it was fired from, I presume down in the valley at least, but it hardly made a mark. (I wonder who was in the castle actually, at that time, and defending it???? And why the Germans didn’t get any more shots off???).

From here (it didn’t open until 2 o’clock and closed again at 5 at this time of year), and so did the next place we wanted to visit, but which was only a couple of minutes’ drive away.  On our way down the road to Castelnaud we had noticed a large shop/museum/gallery/warehouse that had crystals on display and for sale, but as it was open until 6.30, we thought we would visit after we had done our speedy tour of The hanging Gardens of Marqueyssac.

We arrived at the gardens at 3.30, the woman at the counter suggested we walk along the clifftop path to the belvedere (we had no idea what that was, but took her advice). The sun had come out in full now, the cloud having finally been penetrated and then quite quickly burnt off once the heat had arrived. When I say heat, it is a relative term only, certainly not the gorgeous heat of the Mediterranean coast in summer, but I guess the temperature probably got up towards 17 or 18 degrees whereas for much of the last couple of days it would have been single digits, and closer to zero than 10. (Put it this way yesterday, 29^th (I’m writing this retrospectively) we were ambling around markets in a little village and the thermometer above a pharmacy said 10 degrees, and it felt positively balmy compared to other days).

I digress. I think we saw three other people in the gardens when we were there, it not being the height of summer, the place was nearly dead, which is a pity because at this time of year I suspect these gardens are more beautiful than at any other time of the year. They are the French style rather than English, with structure and design of shrubs and trees the basis rather than flowers and so of course the autumn colours were exquisite.  The brochure describes them as “romantic and picturesque” , with “more than six kilometres of shaded paths bordered by 150,000 (who counted them I wonder) hand pruned box trees a hundred years old”. The ones bordering the paths are the standard squared off shape but at the beginning of the garden, around the chateau they are arranged in curved beds (not round, but squiggly) and the plants within have been rounded off too so they resemble an x-ray of a bowel. Hopefully a photo will help you visualise.

We walked along to the belvedere and discovered it was in fact a high view point, 130 metres above the river, and afforded views along the river valley to a wee village called La Roque Gageac which from here looked like Lilliput. Further on, there was a large set of binoculars mounted on a pole and so we could spy on the residents but unfortunately no one was doing anything untoward that we could see.

We returned to the beginning of the gardens along red, brown and gold leaf carpeted paths, detouring when we could to see little buildings or water features on our way. We could have spent a lot longer there, but because we are able to power walk, I think we got a pretty comprehensive view of it all in our 90 minutes.

We back-tracked slightly and returned to the crystal place when we left here. Hilary and I went in and looked around. There are some amazing naturally occurring things in the world of rocks and minerals aren’t there? Including huge amethyst rocks that have been cut open to reveal their beauty. We scuffled around the edges of the piles outside and found some small chips of amethyst and gorgeous dark blue knobbly stones which we picked up as mementoes, before buying a couple of small things for Di for Christmas.

From here we wound our way around the thin country roads of the Dordogne to Saint Cyprien a slightly larger village where we had picked out a camping spot at the foot of the hill which housed the village.

It was very quiet here apart from the bell in the tower which we imagined was operated hourly by an old and shaky bell ringer who fell asleep periodically between chimes because it was not a smooth and regular tolling which occurred especially at 5 a.m.  At 7 p.m. each night he seemed to come alive in a rather manic fashion though, and after a spluttery  start would frenetically pull on the rope until at least one hundred tolls had pealed out. We don’t have any idea why this would be, it may be one -of those unanswered questions which will stay with us for eternity.