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The Dordogne — a step-by-step guide

With its hilltop villages, endless chateaux and rustic simplicity, it’s the region of our holiday dreams. Here's how to get the most out of a visit

Anthony Peregrine Published: 3 May 2015

For the mature of spirit, the Dordogne is the way the whole world should be. It embodies the sunlit certainties of an indistinct past when we all had time and were happier. Here is a ruffled landscape rolling up to green hills and woodland, down to strong rivers. Punctuated by chateaux, cliffs, geese and ducks, it has been purpose-built for mellow wellbeing.

Prehistoric man knew this. He showed up in large numbers for the Stone Age good life of food, shelter and walls to paint on. Later events gave the place a tougher texture. The Hundred Years’ War and religious conflict both blasted this way: the dozens of castles weren’t thrown up simply to enhance the view. Then things stuck. The region, known historically as Périgord, was bypassed, a backwater of peasant revolt and rural unreason. Thus it remained little touched by the crunch of development. Hence its attractiveness.

The land cedes to villages glowing with gold stone, their layouts unchanged for centuries. Arcaded bastides prove as suitable to rural life now as they did 650 years ago. They promise permanence, pageants and long meaty meals. Towns, too, remain the continuation of the countryside by other means. The whole constitutes an idealised homeland for any European, which is why we show up in such liberal quantities. Turn off the few main roads, though, and you’re remote within moments. No one’s been around here, ticketing and taming on behalf of tourism. It’s as it is, and as it was back then. OK, not quite. They’ve slotted swimming pools, wi-fi and Nespresso machines into the idyll. These people may be rustics, but they’re not stupid.

Here’s how to get the best out of it.

1 Book a gite...

The Dordogne is rich in them: in villages and distant hamlets or down tracks little used since the last bison hunt. For not a very great deal of money — and less this year, given sterling’s strength —

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you should expect to be transported back to better times of large gardens, golden stone houses and untrammelled valley views (with, of course, trimmings such as a pool).

This is the bucolic base that you might actually never leave. You will be far too busy staring at the landscape, before leaping into action to sit on the terrace with a glass of Bergerac wine and one of Martin Walker’s “Bruno” detective novels, set in the Dordogne. We suggest the south of the area, which just shades it on the attractiveness stakes. Périgord Noir, around Sarlat and the Vézère and Dordogne valleys, is the unmissable bit.

The British-run local specialists Simply Périgord have a good selection of houses hidden about the wooded landscape. At the end of a most unpromising farm track near , the Maison Rose is the sort of lost little farmhouse you’d buy and convert yourself, if two Dutch fellows hadn’t got there first. You’ll find exposed stonework, beams, wooden and terracotta floors, a brand-new rustic kitchen and dining room. Plus pool, woods and pasture — and nobody else as far as the eye can see. Yours for £1,099 for a high-season week (simply-perigord.com).

Elsewhere, it’s American money that’s given Le Fraysse, on the edge of Pressignac, its wow factor. The place is somewhere between a patrician farmstead and small country house, with contemporary comfort and technology slipped in. Terrific gardens, too, with plenty of crannies in which to hide from the family. It sleeps eight in some style, for £2,386 a week in the summer hols.

If

Roque star: La Roque-Gageac is one of the prettiest spots along the Dordogne river (Getty)

you’re truly pushing out le bateau, then Château Sanglier, near , is the real deal: 30-acre grounds, pool, tennis, staff and ancien régime interior rendered acceptable for contemporary plutocrats. There’s room for eight, for a weekly £5,990 in high season.

Another British-run outfit, Pure , also has a decent, mainly top-end choice, including, in the deep south of the département, a duo of converted properties sleeping six. Both La Laurencie, near , and La Chartreuse du Sord, near , are “rural revisited”, with everything you need — space, pools, grounds, terraces, serenity — and nothing you don’t. A high season week

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at La Laurencie is £1,611; La Chartreuse £1,397 (purefrance.com).

Dominique’s Villas is a third British company (we’re sticking with British, not from blind patriotism, but because the company has belting properties and is reassuring, language and service-wise). Les Boulvènes, for instance, is a 19th-century maison de maître, masterfully decorated, with four double bedrooms, four bathrooms and enough countryside all around that you’d be lucky to bump into any of your seven fellow guests. It’s £2,700 a week in the summer hols (dominiquesvillas.co.uk). Three-bedroom Maison du Bos, on a slope near St-Avit-Sénieur, sits amid fruit trees and a landscape offering a sort of Edenish innocence: £2,370 in high summer.

2 ...Or a hotel

For a shorter stay, or added pampering, a hotel is a good idea. (You could perhaps have worked that out for yourself.) The Dordogne has dozens, running from OK to excellent. Here’s our 2015 selection.

In Périgord Noir, the Domaine de Monrecour rises proud by the Dordogne river at St-Vincent- de-Cosse, its grandeur — noble facades, wood panelling, monumental staircase, cracking grounds — bestowing status on customers who may or may not deserve it (doubles from £80 in low season; monrecour.com).

Close by, and far off the beaten track, is the Domaine de la Rhonie, near . It’s a working hilltop farm adapted with brio for paying guests. Rooms are bright and comfortable, food mainly from the farm, space and upland views prodigious. This year, the eighth- generation boss, Marie-Rose, is laying on games — skittles and then some, 70 in all — for allcomers (doubles from £56; domainedelarhonie.com).

Château Sanglier is an unbeatable gîte — with an irresistible swimming pool (Simply Perigord)

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Across the river, just beyond Cénac-et-St-Julien, Château de Maraval is a new Dordogne star. Rustic outside — great grounds, 15th-century stone exterior — it goes urban-design inside; imagine finding Wallpaper magazine within the covers of The Illustrated London News. There’s nothing comparable in the Dordogne. And, with a Klimt room and a Flamenco room, a full spa, a Dali sofa and brightness throughout, it works brilliantly. The owners, Anne-Marie and Thierry Sponne, are jolly welcoming, too (doubles from £125; chateaudemaraval.fr).

Near Bergerac, make for the Chartreuse du Bignac at St-Nexans. It’s isolated beyond reason, but immensely civilised once found, with fine eating to boot. You may imagine yourself a minor member of the squirearchy (doubles from £115; abignac.com).

The county capital, Périgueux, has belting little contemporary studios in a new town-centre aparthotel, the Suites du Théâtre, available for one night, seven or 70 (or anywhere in between). There’s an underground car park right outside, so this is a great base from which to explore, and there’s a moderate amount of evening life when you return (doubles from £61; appart-hotel- perigueux.suitesdutheatre.com).

3 Eat, drink, and be merry

Round here, meals come in from the fields and farmyards and onto the plate with a minimum of fuss. Ducks and geese in the pastures aren’t decorative. They provide foie gras (spare me the moralising, I’ll spare you the food porn), but also confits, magrets, goose civet in wine and goose fat for cooking potatoes.

Limousin beef isn’t far away, while freshwater fish — notably pike and perch — are nearer yet. Strawberries and nuts are ubiquitous; autumn brings wild mushrooms and truffles. But the key thing round a Dordogne table is conviviality. If you’re in po-faced foodie mode, you’re missing the point.

So drink up. Bergerac wines — from the reds of Bergerac itself, Pécharmantand Montravel through the mellow whites of and — are, euro for euro, better value than next-door Bordeaux. If you don’t believe me, go tasting at the Maison des Vins in Bergerac (from £3.60; bergerac-tourisme.com/Le-Cloitre- des-Recollets-Maison).

Better yet, travel to Château Feely near Saussignac. Caro and Sean Feely — South Africans of Irish ancestry — produce cracking organic wines, provide B&B and gîtes, walking holidays, wine courses and anything else grape-related that either they or you can think of. They are also profoundly agreeable (one-hour taster tours from £7; feelywines.com).

For news of ducks, geese and related topics, join the aptly named Boucherie family at La Garrigue Haute, Prats- de-, near Sarlat. They do chambres-d’hôtes on the farm, plus evening meals in the farmhouse, from £14 (lagarriguehaute.fr).

The best truffle outing is to Edouard and Carole Aynaud-Humblet’s at Péchalifour, lost above St Cyprien. They lay on summer-morning visits for £4.30, and half-days of truffling, with lunch, for £44 (truffe-perigord.com).

As for restaurants, you’re spoilt for choice, but three establishments we’ve recently enjoyed include the Bistrot du Presbytère, opposite the church in the hamlet of Queyssac, just outside Bergerac. It’s an old-fashioned joy, like somewhere deep in the Cotswolds, and do your best to bag an outside table. I thought I might stay for ever. Lunch menus start at just £9; dinners from £15

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The Lascaux II cave paintings at Montignac (Getty)

(bistrot-presbytere-queyssac.fr).

Back in the Périgord Noir at Siorac, L’Auberge du Trèfle à Quatres Feuilles has a youthful take on Périgord favourites (menus from £15; letrefle4feuilles.com). Upriver, La Petite Tonnelle, at Beynac, has an appealing buzz. The food’s good, too (three-course dinner menu £20; restaurant- petite-tonnelle.fr).

4 Visit a town

Périgueux is the French country town par excellence, with a tangle of old streets around the Byzantine-style cathedral. The place lives well, with a long past, and on summer Wednesdays it has a smashing evening market, alive with food, music and dance. At other times, eat at Christine Maurence’s La Taula for the best local grub (dinner menu £23; restaurantlataula.com).

In Bergerac there are two statues of the lavishly nosed Cyrano de Bergerac, though the chap never set foot in the place. More in tune with historical truth is the old centre and its tobacco museum. We learn that smoking started 3,000 years ago, that baccy eased Catherine de Medici’s crippling headaches, and that Bergerac remains a tobacco-growing centre. Also a famous wine-producing centre, witness the Maison des Vins (see above) down by the Dordogne. So, that’s two vices covered within 100 yards.

The finest Dordogne town, though, is Sarlat, its network of streets and squares articulating an idealised medieval and Renaissance past. It’s a complete stunner — and especially so on Wednesday and Saturday market days. Eat at the excellent La Rapière (lunch £12.50, dinner menu from £18; 00 33 5 53 29 86 27).

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5

Anyone for pétanque? Explore the villages

Villages are the glory of the Dordogne. La Roque-Gageac is so perfect as to be damn near annoying. Jammed between cliffs and the looping Dordogne river, this gold-stone spot scrambles up and over itself for space. There’s a sense of centuries on the stairways, passages and streetlets. Just down river, Beynac is almost as atmospheric, and topped by a castlethat seems ready to roar.

Further south is the land of the bastides, medieval new towns built initially to ensure economic control of the locality, then pressed into service as English or French outposts in the Hundred Years’ War. Monpazier is probably the most pristine, with a chess-board layout and arcaded central square. But nearby Beaumont has Bariat, the sort of hardware store you thought died out when your gran was a girl (quincaillerie-bariat-dordogne.fr). Across the village, Prudence Kilgour, an Australian, has established a perfume business, Parfum Prudence, with a discreet and ultra- feminine elegance (prudence-parfumeur.com).

6 Go deeper

The Vézère valley is Stone Age central. Restraint is needed, though, to avoid cavern fatigue. Start in Montignac with Lascaux II, wherein are reproduced the greatest cave art hits of a Lascaux cave long closed to the public. Brilliantly conceived animals surge with life and colour across 17,000 years (£7.15; semitour.com/lascaux-ii). At Font-de-Gaume, just outside , one can see original polychrome wall paintings. They are extraordinarily moving, but, with daily visitor numbers limited to 78, it’s jolly difficult to get in. Make sure you book ahead (£5.35; 00 33 5 53 06 86 00).

Meanwhile, the nearby Roque-St-Christophe is essentially a long, steep cliff face with caves and fissures inhabited from palaeolithic times to the Renaissance. Clamber over it — it’s accessible to

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just

Foie gras salad days in Sarlat (Corbis)

Market day in Sarlat (Doug Pearson)

about all — and you’re clambering over 55,000 years of our past (roque-st-christophe.com; £6).

7 Take in a chateau

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The Dordogne is said to have a thousand chateaux. This is nonsense. But it has a lot, mainly left over from the Hundred Years’ War and later unpleasantness. The very best is the Renaissance Château des Milandes, near Castelnaud. Rather than relying on its own story, Milandes tells of the exotic entertainer Joséphine Baker, who owned it after the Second World War.It’s a matchless tale of talent, toplessness, the French Resistance, courage, ideals and disaster. It unfolds throughout the chateau (£6.50; milandes.com).

Second best is the ridge-topping Château de Castelnaud, a much fought-over strategic stronghold in the Hundred Years’ War. There is a great collection of medieval arms and war machines (£6.90; castelnaud.com). Third would be the Château de , a mighty item dominating the eponymous village, with fabulously ornate gardens, much furniture and a history of first-class restoration by the de Bastard family (£6.80; chateau-hautefort.com).

Fly to Bergerac with Ryanair, Flybe and Jet2, or Brive with Ryanair or Cityjet. Cherbourg, St Malo and Caen are all convenient ports for reaching the Dordogne by car (a seven-hour drive). Brittany Ferries runs services from Portsmouth and Poole (from £184 return, with car and two passengers; brittanyferries.com), as does Condor Ferries (from £198 return, condorferries.co.uk).

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Anthony Peregrin… 9 people listening

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Hattie Powis 20 hours ago Well it is lovely but the food tends to be a bit rich for us, all duck and foie gras, or walnuts.

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Tom Bloomfield 1 day ago How to be recognisably foreign in France. The Dordogne is a river, the region is Perigord.

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Anthony Peregrine 4 hours ago @Tom Bloomfield Alternatively, how to be recognisably wrong in any country. The Dordogne is indeed a river - but also the contemporary name of the county. Administratively, it has superseded the term "Périgord" - though many locals, and French people in general, still cling to the old name. Foreigners, and anyone else, are therefore perfectly justified in referring to the region as "the Dordogne". They do it all the time. If I can help you in any other way, please don't hesitate to ask.

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