Departed our lovely Gite after 5 nights & headed
upstream along the Dordogne River. The landscape is changing with undulating
green hills & fewer grapevines & many signs & banners showing that
“Le Tour de France” passed this way a few months back. First stop was Beynac-et-Cazenac,
a beautiful town set on the river bank with the village nestled into the cliff
face & the castle overlooking everything from the top of the cliff –
spectacular!
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| Beynac-et-Cazenac |
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| Beynac-et-Cazenac |
Next stop was La Roque Gageac – similar to Beynac but
without the castle. Both towns offered magnificent panoramic views over the
river valley & surrounding hills.
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| La Roque Gageac |
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| La Roque Gageac |
We then drove to Sarlat-la-Caneda, a bigger town/city with
magnificent old building throughout the city centre. The locals seem to have no
awareness of cars – they just cross the street wherever without looking, stand
in the street for a chat or a smoke & reluctantly move to let us through??
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| Tired duck at Sarlat-la-Caneda |
Finally we drove to Rocamadour where we are staying for two
nights. Another speccie place with a Chateau at the top of the cliff & the
town strung out along very narrow steep streets along the cliff edge & down
into the valley.
Today we walked to the valley below Rocamadour & then up
the staircase (256 stairs), then up the zig zag path through the trees to the
ramparts of the chateau at the top – quite a climb! We then wandered the
streets & walked across to the other side of the valley to look back at
this spectacular setting. A truly amazing place originally known as a
pilgrimage destination – they climbed the stairs on their knees!!
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| The amazing Rocamadour |
I hope you followed tradition and climbed the stairs in the correct manner! What beautiful scenery. Love those rock walls.
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