The Second Leg

So ….here we are back in France – apologies for lack of blog activity in recent weeks.

We had a medium family crisis early in June and decided to cut our trip short to go and respond to that back in the UK. Decided to buck the trend and not share all our personal stuff on the World Wide Web hence no blog for a while.

We came back to France last Monday and decided to try Newhaven to Dieppe for a change, which kept the ferry affordable but still saved a few hours motoring dahn sahf at Bessie Speed (similar to Light Speed in that both contain the word ‘Speed’).

During this week we have made our way south to the Dordogne, which is rapidly becoming one of our favourite haunts, and since then we have been gently trundling from pretty place to pretty place, usually with pretty places in between – it’s a hard job but someone has to do it.

(Editors Note – the previous passage should be taken with a pinch of salt (or pepper, or other condiment of your choice) as it contains certain factual errors:-

1. Driving round France in the sunshine is not, in fact, a hard job
2. Nobody actually has to do it …. actually … just saying… not jealous at all

On Monday we wound up at a lovely little Aire at a tiny place called La Perouille which is near to Chateauroux. Here there is a small grass meadow on the edge of the hamlet beside a very pretty lake surrounded by trees with open farmland beyond. The peace and tranquility here are tangible – there were just two other campers with couples also quietly enjoying this magical place as we did. We walked round the lake barefoot, just holding hands and soaking up the atmosphere and it was all rather lovely really.

On Tuesday we made our way further south to Sourzac, a pretty village near Mussidan, where we parked on a dedicated area for campers on the bank of the river L’isle. The road and the beautiful old village church nestle into foot of the cliffs here and we found a glorious waterfall cascading down the rocks into a man made pool with a lovely shrine and a statue of the Madonna gazing benignly down.

Wednesday saw us deciding to stay a second day as the place was so nice and we gave the bikes their first outing and took a ride to Bourgnac down some lovely country lanes – we rode for several hours for the round trip and saw only one or two cars in the whole trip! We also had a walk over a single track bridge across the river in Sourzac and explored a bit.

On Thursday we were on the move again, but only for a couple of hours, touring the little (sometimes very little) country lanes and ending up on a small grass campsite Le Petite Land, just inside the Perigord National Park between Thivier and Chalais. The site is run by Fred and Irene, a lovely Dutch couple and has everything you could possibly want peace, nature, showers, hook up and even a small pool to cool off when it all gets a bit to warm. I don’t wish to be stereotypical, but the Dutch do seem to do this stuff really well.

On Friday we took a trip to Jumilhac le Grande, only half an hour away and a fabulous village in the hills with a delightful river running through the tree lined valley and the most astonishing fairytale chateaux, all round towers and lofty walls, perched on a rocky outcrop overlooking the valley. There is a legend attached to the chateaux of ‘The Spinner’ – Louise de Hautefort – the Lady of an early Marquis de Jumilhac, who was imprisoned in a tower in the chateaux for thirty years while her jealous husband was away fighting. This was to prevent Louise from seeing her previous lover who she had not been allowed to marry. The story goes that her lover took a job as shepherd to the castle so that he could be near her and they communicated by hiding messages in spun wool bobbins lowered from her window.

Saturday and Sunday have been lazy days at the site, where we are now the only campers and I’m sitting in the shade of our awning watching Fred mow the grass on his ride-on mower, listening to the bird song and writing a blog. Probably go for a dip later.

Ho Hum

Namaste

Paul and Sam