New adventure in OZ: Dordogne

We started our long weekend by getting up at 0300, finished packing the car and hit the road at 0400. The long weekend of the 14th July, France's National day, is notorious for traffic jams as people flock to the beach or start their summer holidays. So to avoid any unpleasant delays on the road, we took off early. Dordogne was the destination, 'active relaxation' was the objective. This is a term I'm familiar with since I began taking holidays. She tries to be active, and I try to relax.

However, at 1100 Saturday morning, we found ourselves on a very old, run-down bus, driving along the Dordogne river, taking us to our starting point for a 22km canoe trip. Carsac to Beynac. We thought we'd be walking to the starting point after the driver lost the gears and stalled the bus about 45 seconds after we departed. But eventually we made it, jumped in our canoe and off we went.

Along the river you get an amazing view of some beautiful castles.

A photograph of the photographer.

The Dordogne is a rather rich and fertile area and because they have several rivers in the area for irrigation, you find feilds upon feilds of crops. This was a nice backdrop for the bright Sunflowers.

This village went all out in decorating the streets. This is the main square, but almost every street in town was decorated with a similar style, in different colours.

This was the view from the Chateau de Biron. It was quite different because the court yard had an open archway that gave way to this view. Not really built for safety or security, but for style and elegance.

A surprisingly impressive site was the Roque de Saint Christophe. It's not really a cave, but instead an enormous natural shelter that has been used by man for the last 50 000 years. They have found burial sites near the cliff face, and more recently, during the middle ages, it was built into a real city. They constructed a houses on the cliff face, a church, stables, butchers, blacksmiths, and everything neccessary to daily life. it is located just near the river, so they had acces to fresh water. And there was and still is only one entrance. So it is the perfect place to defend against any attackers.