Thursday, August 23

In my haste to get out of Brittany and the rain, I missed seeing the large city of Nantes, where the Loire ends, and where my friend Veronique was born. I also missed the entire Poitou-Charentes region, which looks lovely in pictures, but was a kind of a grey blur yesterday (at 140 km an hour), and there was still no sign of blue sky. Or any color of sky.
I decided to take the last leg of my trip along the Dordogne, (top) the prettiest French river I know so far.
I keep coming back to this region whenever I can, because it has a combination of natural beauty, fascinating history, and great food. It’s the land of "Clan of the Cave Bear," Richard the Lion-Hearted, and medieval Christian pilgrims, and its cuisine is renown: nuts, cheeses, salads, foie gras, and mouth-watering comfort-food featuring duck and potatoes.
This where you find the famous grottos and caverns that are geological marvels, and the ages-old cave paintings. Lascaux is one of the most famous. The actual site is restricted to archeologists, but France recreated an exact replica cave site called Lascaux II, accurate down to every rock contour and paint mark, and you can see the reverence with which ancient man regarded the creatures that gave them food and clothing, (bottom).

The river rises in the mountains of Auvergne, and flows generally west about 500 km through the Limousin and Périgord regions before flowing into the Gironde, its common estuary with the Garonne, north of Bordeaux. Once enemies, the French and English faced each other dangerously in their chateaux on opposite sides of the Dordogne.
All along the river you find charming little villages, such as Beynac, (3rd from top) known as one of France’s ‘plus beaux villages’-- it was the town you saw in "Chocolat" starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche. Sarlat la Caneda (2nd from top) is the tourist favorite, mobbed in Summer, but offering great places to stay and eat.
Further on up the Dordogne is the village I was aiming for—Carennac, in the Lot.
No sun yet, but the rain had stopped, and I wanted a good experience to cap off my trip. I didn’t want it to end in defeat by the weather, and the dreary compromise of highway motel rooms.