Finally have reliable/convenient internet acesss -- thought I'd focus on the last two days and then fill in the last week or two later.
The Dordogne Valley is just northeast of Bordeaux and is one of the most beautiful places in France -- castles, wide rivers, green everywhere, flowers in the fields -- if you had to fanticize about France, this would be it! Drove down here on Saturday from the I'le de Re -- very little in this country is straight, including the roads. It's probably a hundrd miles as the crow flies --actual mileage was twice that and it took me almost four hours -- and that's with a decent GPS -- without it, I'd still be driving!
In the States if you're on a primary road, there'd be a sign indicating "Denver -- 50 miles -- and an arrrow" -- here, the sign indicates the "next little village -- maybe/maybe not has the mileage -- and the arrow is typically pointing directly at the center of a 'Y' in the road" -- "left/right" -- you have a 50-50 chance!! Multiply that by a hundred plus signs and you get an idea of what it's like to drive here -- plus the guy (or gal) on your bumper going 30+ kilometers over the speed limit -- in a hurry to get some place so they can wait and do nothing! Fun, fun, fun!
Anyway, the GPS got me to a small town called "Carsac" Saturday afternoon -- you'd figure it'd be simple from there to find the apartment -- WRONG! The computer says the population is 400-500 people -- I can tell you that on a Saturday afternoon at four pm -- the visible population is zero, not a single store in town is open and no one has a "real" address -- it's "cross the small bridge, go about a quarter mile until you come to the intersection with the cows grazing on your left, take a right, go two hundred yards, then go under a bridge, turn left at the poppy field, go until you see our sign -- it's written in pencil on a paper plate nailed to a tree on the side of the road -- should take you five minutes" -- or at least those were the instructions I got when I called the landlord, helplessly lost (turns out I wasn't even in the right town so the directions didn't do much good -- thank you GPS)! He ended-up coming and finding me -- followed him to the apartment -- when I say I'm "in the country", I'm not exagerating!
Decent place though -- a mill converted into apartments -- there must be ten thousand converted mills in the country judging by the signs on the roads advertising lodging. Needless to say, I hunkered in for the evening.
Yesterday, my first stop was the Chateau de Beynac -- unlike any chateau I've been to so far -- this was a "real castle" in every sense -- built in the 11th century, it was built for military purposes, not to show off! Amazing fantasy time -- could've stayed there the entire day wandering the halls, staircases and battlements -- storybook type of stuff -- what a castle should be like! Way up on the top of a cliff overlooking the town and the Dordogne River far below -- turrets galore, rock and slate roofs, five foot thick limestone block walls with narrow slits for the archers, massive wood/metal doors, moats, a narrow steep approach to the front gate -- if you've seen a movie with a castle in it, this could've been it!
Forced myself to leave to visit another castle across the river -- seems that during the 100 Years War between England and France, these two castles helped mark the battle line -- one side in each castle -- the English actually occupied quite a bit of France for quite a while. The second castle was the Chateau de Castelnaud, it was also a "real castle" -- built in the 11th century and heavily modified over the next five hundred years until military armaments made them unfeasible to defend! Also high up on a cliff, also massive, also built for serious business -- yesterday was a fun day!
Both castles were pretty much "bare bones" -- neither castle was "decorated" with a lot of "fru-fru" stuff and Castelnaud focused heavily on weapons of destruction -- all kinds of early cannons, guns and catapults (full-scale). Getting to it was also a "trip" -- you walk the entry road down a steep hill (think Fillmore Hill [or Stokes Hill] and increase the slope by ten percent), take a sharp left and then climb up two hundred yards to the castle entrance (slightly steeper) -- they were serious about who came to visit! Anyone with a heart condition, forget it or plan to take it in stages -- many of the people visiting were older and I can't believe they don't have bodies strewn all over the place! Then the entry was through a "hidden" door -- thankfully they had a sign or they wouldn't have many visitors. Again, a great time!
Being a glutton for punishment, I decided to go to a third place -- Chateau des Milandes -- this was a "chateau" not a castle. Built in the late 1400's, it's main claim to fame is that it was home to Josephine Baker once she made it "big" in Paris. She was a black woman with an amazing talent for dance and music, who facing extreme discrimination in America in the 1920's, picked-up and moved to France where she achieved international fame and fortune in the Follies Bergere and other venues, eventually traveling the world (including the US where she forced the music halls where she would perform to change their racist practices -- at least while she was there!) The Chateau features her stunning costumes (or in some cases her lack of same) and music. Dancer, movie star, singer, compatriot of ML King, undercover spy for the French Resistance during WWII -- she also found the time and energy to adopt and raise twenty children of all races at the Chateau. She had an interest in birds and the Chateau now houses a raptor breeding facility -- they put on demonstations twice a day -- nothing like having a bald eagle or great horned owl "buzz" six inches over your head heading for the perch you're leaning against!!
Today was a more relaxing day -- started off planning on going to Lescaux to view cave art dating back 14,000-15,000 years -- got there and realized it was all reproductions so "bagged it" went to a lesser known cave -- Grottlo de Rouffignac, where they allowed you to come within a foot of the actual drawings and etchings. Unbelievable experience standing there looking at really well done drawings from that long ago of mastodons, ibex, eurochs, elephants, horses, etc... that these prehistoric people lived with and hunted for food. In the "Great Hall", there are sixty five drawings of animals on the ceiling -- done by the artists lying on their backs (the room was only three to four feet tall at that time) while maintaining perspective -- imagine drawing a horse ten feet long by six feet tall while lying on your back with only the light from small tallow lamps as illumination and maintaining anatomical detail -- amazing!
Stopped and had lunch in Belves, named the most beautiful small town in France -- it was okay, but not sure how it ranked the "best".
Then circled over to Domme, another medieval village built on a hillside. In 1307, seventy Knights Templiers were imprisioned here in a gate house (dungeon) by order of the King. The Knights Templiers were a religious group that allegedly operated a "shadow" state (with the support of the Pope) within much of Europe while staging Crusades and protecting those making pilgrimages to the Holy Lands and elsewhere. Eventually, the French King got worried about their power and wealth and coerced the Pope into betraying them to his forces who promptly eliminated them -- setting the stage for Dan Brown and the infamous Rosselyn Chapel he featured in one of his books.
Lucked out all over today -- the cave art typically requires reservations days in advance and I just walked in -- the tour of the Prison des Templiers ended-up consisting of myself and another couple. The dungeon was actually quite simple, it was the graffiti left by the imprisoned Templiers that was fascinating -- over a period of thirteen years in the prison, they carved grafitti into the rock walls -- carvings that the three of us got to run our hands over today -- awesome is not the word for it! Locked away, they all died of hunger or illness but left their mysterious marking on the walls of their jail -- signs of religious piety, warnings to other Templiers or hidden clues to where the Templiers who escaped from France were going with their immense treaures supposedly including the Holy Grail? Today was a good day!
