MEDIEVEL TIMES PART 1 - DORDOGNE VALLEY (JULY 31 - AUGUST 3)

a good general rule of thumb, wherever you are...

In this section of our journey, we follow the Dordogne River through a ton of medieval towns (think of castles, the Hundred Year War, French versus English, etc.) . This section took us three days and had us climbing hills more than any other region so far. Alice's knee is better and we are getting fitter and stronger each day. Read on for details...

July 31 - What an incredible ride from Bordeaux to Bergerac! There are some moments on our bikes where we just seem to fly - today we cycled 100km averaging 21km/hour, completely in sync with one another. Brilliant. The landscape was absolutely spectacular during the first 45km stretch as we headed into St. Emilion; a sea of bordeaux vineyards dotted with modest but spectacular chateaux (of the winemakers). And St. Emilion itself was a beautiful spot to stop for lunch - a former monastery-dominated village "stacked" on a hillside that features a subterranean church. Unfortunately, Peter and I have yet to learn that France closes down from 12noon until 2:30pm (including tourist sites!) so we were unable to take in the tours. Instead we took in a wine tasting, picking up a lovely "pink" vin rose from a local grower and we wandered around the village.

The next segment of the day (the remaining 65km) were not as spectacular in terms of landscape, which largely took us through dusty, minimalist, road-side villages. We kept our heads down and sailed along with the fairly busy and speedy traffic until reaching Bergerac. The Chambres d'Hotes we booked here has to be one of our favourite spots thus far (see the romantic room-with-a-view shots, below) - a room in a former "labourer house" right in the main square of the town.

Donning some nice clothes, we drank down our bottle of rose and headed out for dinner complete with a great blues band doing some interesting covers of Buena Vista Social Club, the Police, and Toto (ah yes, it seems that Europe loves to reminisce with good ol' hits like Rosana and Africa!). Truly a lovely day and again the weather was spectacular.

Cool shot of the band

August 1 - We left Bergerac around 11am after a leisurely breakfast with our host Bruce (a former British colonial officer once posted in the Rhodesian administration) where it was refreshing to return to english conversation. We continued our journey along the Dordogne to Les Eyzies, some 60km away. This officially counts as our first day of real climbing and thank goodness for the granny-gears on our bikes! Amazing how easy it can be (if you can get yourself into a good mental state :) ) to go up 10-15% grade slopes some 500-1000 metres in distance, at a slow-and-steady pace. Definitely tiring but also very rewarding both in terms of a "yay we made it" angle and the gorgeous views that are waiting at the top.

And of course the downhills are magnificent. We found ourselves rather tired after about 45km and slogged through another eight or so before taking in some power bars and pushing our way to Les Eyzies (the best spot for taking in the prehistoric caves in the area). Shortly after we arrived, the rain came down strong and fairly hard. We ended up snacking upon, you guessed it, cheese and bread and fruit plus a gorgeous bordeaux wine.

August 2 - Today we took in the prehistoric cave site at Les Eyzies (Grotte de Font de Gaume). After waiting 1.5 hours in line for tickets on a Sunday morning (would you believe the site is closed on Saturdays?) we were allotted a tour-spot around noon. And it was well worth this effort and wait as the cave paintings of bison, reindeer, horses and mammoth were spectacular. They only let in 180 people a day to cut down on the amount of humidity created by people's breathing, which causes algae to grow on the walls covering the artwork. Most of the caves in the area are replicas because of this reason but this particular site is the original. The cave itself was not subterranean but was rather a fracture in the mountainside; we were led down narrow passages that were a wonderment in and of themselves. The air was cool and oddly fresh with ceilings up to 100m in height. The paintings were done in manganese and some sort of oxide rather than animal-based dyes - most of the hues were black or a coppery pink colour - the paintings themselves are estimated at 10,000 years old.

It was interesting when we first went into the site, our tour guide talked about the graffiti that the first people who went into the caves in the 19th century left engraved over the original paintings. We both found it interesting how this second set of graffiti has been dismissed because of the older graffiti (paintings) and we privilege that which we do not really have a trust context for. For example, who's to say that the bison and mammoth paintings are not the graffiti (or doodling) from 10,000 years ago? Why does the subsequent graffiti (of people's names and abstract drawings) become a nuisance rather than a part of history also? What will civilizations 10,000 years from now think about the 'art' (read 'graffiti') on cement walls in urban centres?

The bike ride from Les Eyzies to Sarlat was a short 20km. However, as we found out, there are moments when these "short" rides are rather long and arduous. For example, half of this ride was straight up hill. And we were wearing our regular clothes (in fairly humid temperatures), making this an uncomfortable and irritating ride. If not for the cute cows and interesting scenery we would have been super annoyed. Lesson learned...

Another roadside attraction

Our evening in Sarlat more than made up for those 20km. We pitched up at luxurious 3-star hotel in the centre of town and joined the throngs of tourists in the medieval streets. There is a reason why such sites are "overrun with tourists"... in fact we have found this leg of our journey (and the next as you will read soon) to be so (e.g. St. Emilion, Sarlat).

We spent a few hours strolling and taking in the streetlife, streetscape, and a modern art exhibit of Joan Miro's work. Here are some photos:

Joan Miro art exhibit

Afterwards, we settled in (albeit rather early for French time) to our "regional dinner" at Le Bouffon. This is where we decided to put aside our ethical vegetarian choice and go with a cultural rationale for sampling fois de gras (which has almost completely dominated the social landscape here in terms of animated ducks as advertising schtick, duck farms en route in rural areas etc) and duck gizzards (Alice skipped this after her frogs legs/eel experience) and smoked duck (yum). Other regional delicacies include walnuts and heavenly vin aux noix (a sweet aperitif that we are sipping as we write this blog).

We sat outside in the restaurant courtyard, serenaded by two lovely women playing guitar and recorder. They proved to be Peter's focal point for the evening as he flirted like crazy (they even let him play the egg shaker (sort of) in time to their melodies :). After copious amounts of food and beverages, we stumbled (Alice more than Peter) home, fully satisfied with our evening.

Peter, the red-faced lush, flirting with the chanteuses

We are arbitrarily ending this portion of our blog after these few days given that the next section has us heading away from the Dordogne River Valley and heading south to Toulouse and Carcassone (still medievel-oriented but a slightly different route). We will be in touch!

Dordogne grading:

• weather (A) – absolutely magnificent weather!!!
• landscape (A) - best yet! medieval towns, vineyards, more mountainous
• cycling challenge - moderate
• physical and emotional response (A) - steeper rolling hills and we have completely found our groove in terms of pace and distance (Alice has joined Peter in the rank of "intermediate cyclist"
• our relationship (A) - better than ever (we are meeting people but we are enjoying each others' company)
• food (A) - regional dinner in Sarlat was exceptional; local wines and nut apperatif delicious
• accommodations (A) - best yet in Bergerac and Sarlat
• other people – (B+) - Peter got in some good flirting with the musicians and our server at Le Bouffon
• entertainment – (A+) great musical entertainment during dinners in Bergerac and Sarlat

Overall Grade: A+ Loving this area and really in the groove of our holiday!

Hope everyone is well!

Alice and Peter