Dordogne valley

When we left La Rochelle we headed off towards the Dordogne area. Well as we drove into this region, the countryside appeared to change dramatically. It was truly stunning with lovely old farm buildings and houses interspersed with huge Chateau´s. This is real Fairytale Land.

Medieval village

We checked into a very small village called Cadoin in-between Bererac and Sarlat. Why there? Well it had the most amazing Hostel International (what we would call Youth Hotel in UK) which was in an old Abbey built in 1118. We arrived in the night but got a good feel for the place as the bats flew through the arches and cloister within inches of our heads. We were just 2 of the 5 people staying there. It was fantastic and at a total cost of 16 Euro per night including breakfast, it was hardly going to break the bank.

old town

The next morning we woke up to the Abbey bells ringing from 7am onwards. If ringing once wasn´t bad enough then they ring again 5 minutes later. We never quite worked out why. To hear Monks chanting would have finished our alarm call perfectly.

From our base in the Abbey, we ventured out over the next couple of days taking in more breathtaking sights of the Chateau's and scenery. We had beautiful warm sunshine and the car coped with the endless winding roads very well.

One particular fairytale castle we visited was called Chateau de Castelnaud. This was everything you would expect from a cliff-top castle with walls up to 2m thick and the most beautiful views of the surrounding Dordogne countryside from the highest turret. Just like something out of the children's story book, Rapunzel, but alas I had my hair cut from waist length to my shoulders back in 2002 so it was pointless re-enacting that classic line "Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair" so the Prince could climb up and rescue his Damsel. Martin being my so-called Prince would have laughed and run away!! Great.

vinyards

We made a visit to Sarlat-La-Caneda, yet another medieval city that is the capital of this particular area of Perigord Noir. Just look at the photos it's beautiful and definitely gets its fair share of tourists as the pictures try not to show!