Dordogne -- France

By Julian Sudre

If the combination of a cheap flight with a certain joie de vivre is about to send some je-ne-sais-quoi shudders down your spine, a gallic scenery dotted with chateaux and infused with the Hundred Year’s War will certainly create a bouleversement in your attitude towards what the Dordogne has to offer.

Sun-drenched vineyards as far as the eye can see slathered across the notorious clay-chalk soil of the region and its pristine villages peppered along and around the Dordogne River and its valleys are not there, anymore, to battle for supremacy – the British invasion is going great guns – and the Dordogne, as a fait accompli, has become Dordogneshire.

Wing your way down to Bergerac, the market town that is the gateway to the Perigord and take your pick from there. Eymet, the Bastide town that is saturated with history, fantastic markets with fresh locally produced fruits and vegetables or Monbazillac, where the sweet wine is produced as the area benefits a microclimate which is particularly favourable to the development of the “noble rot”.

A word to the connoisseurs – while his statue is highly photographed in Bergerac, Cyrano does not hail from there and tourists, a good chunk of them don’t even take the trouble to open their Rough Guide. So please, before whipping out your camera, do your homework and save some bobs.

Wine tasting and gites, aka, Bed and Breakfast are maybe not your reason d’etre while you holiday in France but they remain the quintessence of a full-on bird’s view of what the Dordogne proffers to the visitor – The sum and substance of simplicity par excellence of a gentle lifestyle.

The perfect spot for a night with a superb view over the valley, and lo and behold the Monbazillac chateau as a neighbour: l’allee de Lambre gite says it all.
The lodging lies between vineyards, a wine tasting house and of course the Monbazillac chateau and all that to the tune of 40 euros a night.

If holidaying in the Dordogne gets you thinking. Its diversity will get you in love with its countryside.

For further information about lodging, please reply to this article.