A Visit to The Périgord, 2025

​Sunday 22 June: Sarlat-La-Canéda

Following a midnight arrival in Bordeaux from Paris on Air France, we had an early morning rise at the Chambres-d'hôtes Chrysalis where our host Isabelle provided exceptional service. This concluded a tough 2 days of travel from San Francisco (SFO) to Charles DeGaulle (CDG) and on to Bordeaux (BOD). That experience  featured delays of 4 hours at SFO and 9+ hours at CDG for a total elapsed time of 30+ hours. We were really bushed.
 
The rental-car pickup at the airport and the drive east from Bordeaux were smooth and uneventful. We had acquired a local SIM card at a Relay shop at CDG in Paris, so we were well-equipped for navigation to Sarlat-La-Canéda in the region of Périgord Noir.
 
Périgord is an historic region of France that corresponds roughly with the administrative department of the Dordogne and the two are often conflated. Périgord itself consists of 4 areas that are often distinguished by the colors black, white, green and purple. Périgord Noir (aka the Sarladais) is centered around the town of Sarlat-La-Canéda in southeast Dordogne. The region’s association with “noir” expresses the prevalent colors of its evergreen oak forests and dark, fertile soil. What really attracted us there, besides the beautiful countryside, was the pre-historic cave art at places like Lascaux.

Cordeliers Dandelion

We reserved our apartment at Cordeliers Dandelion (left) on Booking.com. In Sarlat, many buildings on the periphery of town are row houses with massive exterior and interior walls 18 inches thick and ancient wooden lintels that overlay doors and windows. It must have been a chore remodeling them as accommodations.

​Our building was 3 stories high with 2 units on the first story and another above. A large open courtyard in back included utility rooms on the ground floor including laundry. All windows had heavy wooden shutters that open outward. Ours was a compact unit of 2 rooms, including a bedroom with 2 sinks and an open shower, with adjoining toilet room. The main room was a kitchen/dining/living combo with modern appliances. Altogether, it was modest but very well located near town and parking at a nightly cost of about 75 euros.

---

The town of Sarlat is a jumble of beautiful buildings constructed in a valley surrounded by hills. Everything shares the same ochre-colored stone and the streets weave in a seemingly random pattern. Architectural styles range from medieval to the 17th century, thanks to the turbulent history of a region subject to the vicissitudes of the Hundred Years War, religious wars, and the uprising of peasants known as  croquants (yokels). In the 1960’s, French Minister of Culture André Malraux preserved the town from commercial development.

Scenes in Sarlat

After a leisurely expedition to secure provisions, we lunched at our apartment with locally sourced paté de canard, saucission, fromage and pain. The remainder of the day was scheduled mostly for recuperation. Later, we explored the old city looking for something light for dinner and found it at the Auberge Salamandre. Incidentally, Sarlat features the salamander in its town emblem in tribute to 16th c. King Francis I. Francis kept it as his personal emblem and included images prominently at his chateau in Chambord and elsewhere. The salamander's ability to survive in fire represented a fine symbol of triumph over adversity and an emblem of purity.

​Unfortunately, I left my phone behind charging so no pictures commemorate our first meal in France. We shared a nice salad with Rocamadour goat cheese and a small pot of baby scallops in cream sauce, accompanied by thinly sliced potatoes sautéed in (probably) walnut oil, and lettuce. This was followed by a gateau de noix (undoubtedly walnuts, the nut of the region) and accompanied by a lovely bottle of rosé wine from the local town of Domme. We don’t expect to find any of those provisions at either Trader Joe or Costco upon return to the US. We were pleased that the toll for the meal was only 60 euros.

Monday, 23 June: Sarlat, La Rocque-Gageac, Beynac, Milandes

We took the Ascenseur panoramique for a bird’s eye view of Sarlat. This is a plexiglass-sided elevator inside a tall stone bell tower built some 400 years ago. At the top is a worthwhile panoramic view of the entire town and valley.

Sarlat-en-Canéda

​The elevator operator also serves as a guide who narrates bits of history about the town and various sights. There were 6 of us on the 12-minute excursion. It was much better than climbing stairs, which we would not have done anyway. I loved the jumble of rooftops arrayed in the town below.
 
We walked through a covered market with regional food stalls. The culinary offerings of this region include various types of paté and terrine, a wide assortment of mushrooms, walnuts, duck and goose products. We purchased a little tug of duck paté to eat later. Those products represent a “heavy” set of foods, which aren’t as appealing in summer’s intense heat as they might be in winter, leading us on this trip to lean in the direction of salads for dinner.
 
Our first stop on the road was at the river (Dordogne) town of La Roque-Gageac, where we boarded the Gabarre Norbert for an hour trip on the river. A gabarre is a wide-hulled, flat-bottomed river barge that evolved historically from transporting things like wine barrels into its modern-day version of a tourist expedition for viewing the beautiful towns along the river.

Gabarre on the Dordogne River

Basically, river transport was supplanted over time by trains and roads so the gabarre operators became entrepreneurs to envision new opportunities. Another operator is named Gabarre Caminade where caminade means “walk” as in “walk on the river.”
 
We followed the river trip with a short drive to lunch at the Domaine de Monrecour. This is a family-owned castle and restaurant not far from the Dordogne river. It was situated in a park-like setting, which is no less than one expects for a castle. We both had the same déjeuner prix-fix menu of duck leg confit with potatoes, and dessert of tiramisu, at the digestible price of 53 euros for two. It was a pleasant experience.

Carol Takes Lunch at La Table de Montrecour

We drove across the Dordogne river on a centuries-old bridge to the Chateau Les Milandes. During the 1940s, this 15th century edifice was first inhabited and then owned by the famous entertainer Josephine Baker. Josephine was an American-born woman-of-color who went to France in 1924 at 19 where she took it off and put it on and wowed the French. During WWII, she made the chateau an auxiliary of the French résistance and became a counter-intelligence operative. Her story is quite a tale.

Chateau de Milandes

We skipped the tour of the chateau itself since we really were there to see the “birds of prey" exhibition. This introduced us in person to a variety of raptors resident at the chateau including hawks, eagles, and owls, all of whom soared and swooped on command, with errant wings occasionally grazing our heads. The predators put on a show of flying, soaring, and doing what raptors do so well.

Bird of Prey

After a full day’s activities, we drove back to Sarlat and decided to eat-in. Our modus operandi for traveling is often to have a nice lunch at a good restaurant and dine-in the evening with either prepared items from a caterer or something simple. We find that in France mid-day meal offerings often include fixed-menu versions of moderate size and price. Otherwise, in a country where most restaurants require first reservations beginning at 7:30, a long, tiring day of excursions followed by dinner can stretch late into the evening.
 
One of our culinary discoveries on this trip was Rocamadour raw milk goat cheese. Rocamadour is a clifftop village to the east of Sarlat that one seldom hears about, but it is a top-3 most visited French town, following Mont Saint Michel and La Roque-Gageac. Rocamadour claims miracles to its credit, helping explain its popularity. You won’t find the cheese in the US, however, where politicians think because it’s raw it can kill you (though apparently not in France). This post confirms that I survived. You can at least read about it and dream.

Tuesday, 24 June: Lascaux

Today, our main touristic menu was--Lascaux…Lascaux. No, that’s not a typo, a re-do, or a variety of lasagna…It’s because there are 2 Lascaux available to visit. Those are Lascaux II and Lascaux IV. We went to both. So, what happened to Lascaux I and Lascaux III?
 
Lascaux I was accidentally discovered in the 1940s by 4 teenagers searching for their runaway dog. It is a cave in the Vézère river valley in Périgord that long-ago Cro-Magnon ancestors (17,000 years ago) used as some sort of refuge and decorated with their “troglo” (meaning “cave”)-art of animal paintings, like a “pre-historic Sistine Ceiling.” In 1868, the first remains of Cro-Magnon man had been discovered in the nearby town of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac. The revelation of Lascaux’s cave paintings in the 1940s added to the pre-historic mythology of the region such that it became a tourist destination.
 
The cave was opened to the public in 1948 and quickly became over-touristed with heavy-breathing humanoids that brought excessive humidity, leading to algae and mold. It was permanently closed in 1963. Lascaux II was then created nearby as a replica that remains visitable, and Lascaux IV was created in 2016 as a high-tech reproduction. Finally, Lascaux III is a traveling exhibition. Such is the march of history and the story of the Lascaux family of exhibits.
 
One might wonder why those “troglos” gathered in Périgord in the first place. It has the merit of being a hilly and heavily forested part of France that provided habitability and security. Naturally hollow limestone hillsides provided accessible and affordable dwellings in caves before the advent of the construction industry. Food of various kinds existed, albeit not yet paté, terrine or confit de canard. Nuts, berries and ‘shrooms proliferated, and ducks were easy prey. Not that there weren’t predators. Bones of mammoths and other beasties have been found as well. For Cro-Magnon man, who migrated from the steppes of Asia, it might have seemed like a garden of Eden. They innovated for protection and survived. And it was good.
 
We went first to Lascaux II, which is an underground replica of the original cave (Lascaux I) that is now closed and used for research. Lascaux II is situated in a lovely and peaceful grove not far from the original cave. We had a guided tour in French with about 25 people. Our French guide was articulate, instructive and amusing. Most important, this tour conveyed a sense of the physical experience of what being in the cave was like (see below). It also leaves the impression that the cave was unlikely to have been a dwelling. It just wasn’t a very attractive place to spend a lot of time. It’s totally dark though they had grease-based candles, but the seating isn’t very convenient and one hesitates to contemplate sleeping or eating. It probably had some sort of communal function. Maybe even education, transmitting knowledge to youth about the natural world and impressing them with the heroic exploits of their elders.

Inside Lascaux II

The drawings and engravings are impressive. Being inside an actual cave accentuates the appreciation for the challenges that the environment created for the creation of art. The images feature large animals like cows, horses, bison and the sort, plus various geometric symbols. They make ingenious use of the undulations in the rock wall, and have a limited range of colors like black, ochre, red. Colors came from ground oxides of various minerals like manganese, iron, and hematite rather than plants. They were applied on calcite walls and ceilings with tools like sticks, blown through straws, or rubbed on with swabs. In some cases, they used techniques that provide an impression of depth and perspective. The "Hall of Bulls" is shown below.

The Hall of Bulls, Lascaux II

Lascaux IV (below), by contrast, is a super-modern structure and presentation of manufactured reproductions of the same drawings as Lascaux II, displayed by sections in very large halls. The building itself was designed by the famous Norwegian Snøhetta architects. Its impressive white stone and glass slice into the hillside like an aircraft wing. 

The reproductions are suspended from the ceiling or planted on the floor like massive broken eggshells with vivid color reproductions of the images.

Lascaux IV

We were originally enrolled in a guided tour at Lascaux IV but we arrived from Lascaux II earlier than expected. We proceeded to have a lunch of croque monsieur and salad in the café. That left an hour and a half wait for a guided tour in French so we switched to a self-guided tour with audiophones. A guided tour would probably have been a successful experience, but the audiophones were a complete liability. Nobody bothered to explain their functionality beforehand. They were supposed to turn on and off while walking among the exhibits. When they worked, they had some useful interpretations, but for the most part they didn’t work as planned. Often the wrong program turned on. The buttons and screen icons were hard to interpret and navigate.  Much of the interpretation duplicated the tour at Lascaux II.
 
Altogether, it was useful to experience both Lascaux II and Lascaux IV because Lascaux II provides a convincing replication of the cave experience while the images in Lascaux IV are more accessible and vivid. Based on our experience, if doing both, it is useful know that a tour at Lascaux II lasts about 60+ minutes, the drive to Lascaux IV is perhaps 10 minutes, and you can get lunch at the café in about half an hour. It is best to choose a guided tour at Lascaux IV; the earphones alone are a distraction. Unless one plans something else between the two experiences, a free hour between the end of Lascaux II and the tour at Lascaux IV makes an efficient combination.  If forced to choose only one or the other, I would go with Lascaux II.
 
On the way back, we stopped at a Romanesque church in the small town of Saint Amand de Coly, which was not a particularly useful sideshow. We fooled around afterwards so long that it got too late to do anything besides order from our round-the-corner Vietnamese restaurant. It was simple, quick, and cheap but prompts the general observation that the French dining scene in recent years has experienced a proliferation of ethnic restaurants of many stripes.

Wednesday, 25 June: Vézère Valley, Rouffignac

Today’s itinerary featured a short trip up the Vézère Valley. It was, well, a spotty day. The road initially provided a lovely, verdant drive west. The Vézère valley above the town of Les Eyzies, however, is VERY winding and hilly in its earliest segment and for a while I thought we had gone astray.
 
Our first stop was the former “troglodyte” (cave-dwelling) encampment of La Madeleine (below)  which gave its name to an entire 3000-year era around 17,000 years ago. It was a functioning village on a cliffside overlooking the Vézère river and is now a farm and tourist attraction. We were the first arrivals at about 9:50, even before the surly French gatekeepers. So, we waited and watched them do their opening-up chores. The visit was interesting to see how the troglos had arranged their habitations and business activities along the one-lane cliffside atop the river.

La Madeleine

Upon leaving, we noticed an indicator that our Dacia car had a low level of GPL. We didn’t even know what GPL was, but it turns out that our car was a “bi-fuel” vehicle and runs on both regular gas and on gaz de petrol liquifié (GPL), which is a blend of propane and butane (cheaper than regular gas). It seems like a work-around version of a hybrid. Dacia, the Romanian manufacturer of our car, is the leading brand of bi-fuel cars in Europe. At the same time that we were low on liquified natural gas, however, we had over half a tank of regular petrol.
 
Nobody at the rental car agency had briefed us on this information. The car has two fill-spouts in the compartment and apparently you can use either fuel. At the time, though, we were confused and uncertain what to do. Gas stations are not on every corner like in the US, but we finally found one and filled the petrol tank. At least we had a full tank of gas and the low level of GPL apparently doesn’t matter. I reflected afterwards that it was a good thing I hadn’t mistakenly pumped gasoline into the GPL spout, like I did several years ago with diesel fuel in our gas car in Aix-en-Provence. That exploit resulted in a lost day returning the car to the Marseilles airport and getting a new one.
 
Before lunch, we stopped at a lovely town called Saint Léon de Vézère . Then we went to a restaurant in the town of Thonac named Le Boïdicou . It had high ratings, but we were in the midst of our petrol problem so we were in a bit of a tizzy and distracted from the food The restaurant had also changed their menu offerings from the online version, which caught us off guard. So, we opted for just a main course so we could get back on the road. It was nicely presented, with edible flowers and strips of ribbon-like courgetti, but it basically amounted to a chicken thigh patty served atop a grain resembling quinoa. Overall, it was not a memorable episode, more our fault than theirs.
 
We had little time before our next destination, the Rouffignac cave . This was one whale of a cave. It was so big they took us in the dark on an electric train to the end, some 3 km inside. It had many other tributaries as well. The art was pretty basic compared to the colorful images at Lascaux, but the variety of animals pictured was diverse, including ibex, mammoths, horses, deer, and rhinos. Most were inscribed on the ceiling. This cave was regularly used by bears that wintered in hibernation. Their claw marks were evident on the stone walls throughout and there was a series of bowl-like scrapings that they had pawed into cozy winter beds.
 
It was beastly hot and we were promised thunder and lightning that might cool things off. With a storm coming, we ate at home: omelette of compté cheese and Paris ham with green peas; dessert of chocolate éclair from our local bakery; rosé wine from the local vineyards in the town of Domme. The storm hit while we were à table. While we ate, hail fell like pellets bombarding our wooden shutters. The lights and electricity blinked several times. We awaited the darkness that our Carmel experience taught would inevitably come and last for days, but… Things settled down, auxiliary power kicked in and we continued. The street below our window swelled with water like a mountain stream. The storm continued, but we survived the first wave.

Thursday, 26 June: National Museum, Font de Gaume

Last night’s rain and hail cooled the weather a bit, so this morning I opened the shutters to welcome cool breezes and light into our abode. The day’s agenda was relaxed since all destinations were relatively close to each other.
 
The National Museum of Pre-History  in the town of Les Eyzies is the physical repository of many artifacts accumulated from the various prehistoric sites around the region. We went there first. The town touts itself as the “world capital of prehistory,” which puts it at least on a level with Gilroy in California, the “world capital of garlic.” The museum has a heavy inventory of pre-historic cutting and stabbing instruments and visual demonstrations how they were made and used. All of them were essential in getting anything done in the pre-historic environment where nobody did anything for you, but there were many different styles and types. They also had a few small decorative pieces like the reindeer-horn carving below dated to 13,000 BC of a bison licking its flank. It has been identified as decorative ornamentation for a “spearthrowing” device.

Bison Spearthrower

That bison has its neck turned so it can lick a wound on its side. The fine details in its eye, ear, horns and hair are exquisite. Its stance was a clever way for the carver to utilize a small horn that was not shaped anything like a bison at all in order to make a carving representing one. The troglo-artists were inventive in accommodating the shapes and undulations in the materials they had to work with. When you get lemons, make lemonade. The museum also had an ample display of supposedly life-sized animals of prehistoric times, if only to demonstrate our own diminutive stature.
 
We scheduled lunch at a local restaurant Les Glycines. The name refers to the flowering plant we know as “wisteria.” The restaurant is part of a hotel and spa plus restaurant combination. It was the most elegant meal we had thus far but we miscalculated on its location and earned an extra thousand or so steps in getting there and back to the car. The 3-course prix fixe menu plus sparkling water came to 56 euros for two.

Font de Gaume, thank god, was the last of our cave/grotto experiences. It was just outside the town of Les Eyzies, but unfortunately the cave opening was up a hill half-a-kilometer away, leading to more steps and significant puffing. There was an interesting tour guide and cave but the images were barely visible in the dark.
 
We move tomorrow from Sarlat to a small hotel/farm where we plan to stay a couple of nights before flying to Paris on Sunday. Otherwise, our schedule was entirely free for the next two days. Since we had a substantial lunch, we went into town this evening for a light supper at the restaurant Le Regent on the Place de la Liberté.  We sat outside on a large piazza packed with people, their dogs and children. We both chose a Caesar Salad and one of us added a Fraise Melba to sweeten life. It was a lovely place and evening and the Regent charged us 57 euros.

​Friday, 27 June: Ferme Lamy, Auberge Layotte

How can one move out of an apartment (Dandelion Cordelier, Sarlat), transfer baggage to another place, Hotel/Ferme Lamy, and still make the rest of the day something to remember?  All it takes is lunch at Auberge Layotte, tucked away in the woods on a dirt road above the Vézère Valley in the French region of Périgord Noir.

First, though, we cleaned and exited our apartment at Dandelion Cordelier and stopped at the local poubelles to deposit our ordures. Then we made a 20-minute drive to Hotel/Ferme Lamy in Meyrals to deposit our suitcases until check-in later in the day. Our lunch at the Auberge was not until noon, so we lingered a bit chez Lamy, inhaling the aroma of fresh-cut hay.
 
The Auberge Layotte is run by chef Régis Gagnadre and is open only from March to November, with reservations available only by telephone. This is farm-to-table, for sure. Chef Régis was there to welcome us on arrival and pretty much throughout the meal, which was all pre-cooked.
 
The all-inclusive, fixed-price menu (45E) follows the seasons and includes aperitif, wine, soup (nettle), 3 hors d’oeuvres (jambon, terrine, lentils), 2 meats (canard, beef cheeks cooked 12 hours), vegetable (potato), 4-cheese platter, dessert (gateau de noix), coffee and digestif. This is the Périgord version of la grande bouffe.

Auberge Layotte

We spent 3 hours à table and were the only non-French. There were about 40 people altogether. We sat outside at a couple of long wooden tables under an L-shaped pergola. Everybody had the same menu and it was all cooked in advance. It was rustic cuisine, pretty good but not highly refined. It was an inviting ambiance, friendly company and a huge amount of food, wine and eau de vie de prunes (aka, slivovitz).
 
Three hours later, following a nap at the Ferme Lamy, we were still reeling. We strolled from our room to the terrace above the pool, which is itself above a wheat field mowed and engraved with tractor tracks. Trees are plump with heavily leafed branches that sway lightly in the breeze as the sun sinks in the west.

Hotel/Ferme Lamy

Saturday, 28 June: Ferme Lamy

We took a late-ish (9-10 am) and leisurely breakfast in the shade on the terrace overlooking the pool and hayfield. Yesterday’s evening breezes were diminished and the lush foliage on the trees hung still. Swallows flew in wide arcs dipping briefly in the pool water for either a sip of H2O or a floundering bug. Breakfast included fresh pain and farm confiture, oeufs durs, fromages of Brie and Tomme de Savoie, assorted pastries of croissant, pain au chocolat, and café of cappuccino and double express.
 
Ferme Lamy seems to be run by a youngish couple with monsieur doing the visible work, like receptionist, cook, dishwasher, shopping and the rest. Fortunately for him, it’s a small place with perhaps 8 rooms. We did see madame momentarily yesterday when she arrived with her two young children. The littlest, about 2-3 years old, pattered about this morning halfway nude on the terrace. We booked the Ferme on Expedia.
 
We had a nice room in a small single-story stone building, with exposed ceiling beams of roughly hewn dark wood. A beautiful antique door salvaged from some abandoned armoire was inserted as the door to a corner closet.
 
We are slowly adjusting to countryside tranquility where eyesight ends at the tree-line canopy beyond the hayfield and infinity pool, and one stretches an ear to hear anything but birds chirping and bees buzzing. Occasionally, tires crunch on gravel in the nearby carpark or a dropped spoon clinks in the kitchen. Not so bad once you get used to it.

Hotel/Ferme Lamy

We spent the day doing our best to avoid doing anything and succeeded beyond wildest expectations. We drove the few kilometers to the town of Les Eyzies (pronounced as Easy, as in The Big Easy), parked the car and walked up and down the one main street, spending only 20 minutes of the hour that we bought from the meter. Then we drove slowly to the town of Le Bugue, which took another 20 minutes or so. We parked, walked to the miniscule Saturday market that was just shutting down for the day, and installed ourselves at the corner café to have a citron pressé (fresh lemonade). They were out of lemons, however so they couldn’t make lemonade and gave us an ersatz facsimile of bottled orange juice instead. We also bought a couple of small quiches for a later snack. Returning to our residence, we chanced upon a back road which took us through the undulating paysage of rural France and the small artists’ town of Meyrals, with studios by Pascal Magis and Mi DeSmedt, that lends its name to the region.
 
Arriving at our domicile, we sat on the terrace gnoshing our quiches. The dough was a bit too thick and doughy, perhaps overly laced with goose fat.
 
Then there was the pool. It provoked existential thoughts like what is a remodeled farmhouse with a beautiful infinity pool doing in the heart of Périgord, the very “capital of prehistory?” The thoughts, though, didn’t last long beyond our plunge into the refreshing water, when it all seemed to make sense. The cloudless weather with air temperature about the same as the human body creates a unity that we seldom experience. Immersing in the cool water followed by air-drying in the gentle breeze elevates the experience. It is one that our pre-historic ancestors never had, so in a way it enhances the "circle of life."
 
We took dinner at the farm this evening, attracted by the simplicity of the thing. I had a nice bottle of Cairanne wine that we needed to consume before our flight to Paris. Cairanne is a little-known ancient hill town in the southern Rhone valley with Grenache-dominant wines where we spent several nights ten years before. It made a fitting conclusion to our brief Périgord excursion.
 
The 3-course dinner was fabulous, the setting was serene and the price was modest (albeit sans wine) at 82 euros for two. A delectable slice of paté de canard was followed by a sautéed piece of canard I’d never seen before—thin strips from the side of the duck (known in French as aiguilette de canard), accompanied by haricots verts (green beans), and finished by a crispy crème brulé, with an espresso chaser. All were enlivened by the Cairanne wine that carried such good memories and now has more of them to curate. Voila et bonne nuit!

NB: If you like France, see my website on classic French "chansons."