The Delights Of Dordogne A Visitor To Southwestern France Takes Home More Than A Handful Of Memorable Images

Southwest France was a miserable place during the Middle Ages. People had to contend with the Black Death and the bubonic plague; the Wars of Religion and the Hundred Years War; hunger, poverty, and military conscription. No one was safe: not the nobles, the clergy, the merchants or the crafts people. Peasants fared worst, living not much better than their livestock.

Today the region is one of France’s sweet spots. Clifftop castles along the Dordogne River no longer shelter marauding armies, but instead welcome you to their halls and museums. Fortified villages that once beat back invaders from their gates now invite you to amble along their winding cobblestone alleys, past stone houses with flower boxes of pink and red blooms. And hunger is absent - in fact, the restaurants in this gastronomically celebrated region turn out meals that you’ll talk about for years.

If you visit during summer and spend all your time in the tourist spots, you’ll also talk about the crowds for years. But that’s no reason to stay away - the Dordogne region is simply one of those places deserving a visit, regardless. And it takes surprising little effort - usually a 10-minute stroll - to slip away and be by yourself. You would need an entire summer to visit the region’s countless historic walled towns and castles and to explore the countryside.

If you have only a week or two, however, you cannot go wrong by starting your visit at the stunning river villages of Beynac-et-Cazenac, La Roque-Gageac, and Domme, all within easy driving distance of each other, and each with something unique to offer.

Beynac-et-Cazenac is a medieval village shaped like a pyramid, with Beynac Castle forming the peak. Although a 500-foot drop protects Beynac Castle on three sides, and a double perimeter wall guards the fourth, Richard the Lion Heart succeeded in overrunning the castle in the 12th century. In 1214 it fell again, this time to Simon de Montford, who ordered it dismantled stone by stone (a victor’s habit of the day). Beynac Castle was soon rebuilt. In French hands during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453), it was the launching point for raids against English-held castles within sight across the river.

In today’s Beynac-et-Cazenac you can sun yourself at a riverside cafe, rent a canoe, take a guided boat tour, poke through craft shops, or visit Beynac Castle. The trip to the castle is a panting climb, especially in summer heat. You ascend through cobblestone alleys - too narrow for cars - that are crowded between stone cottages with aged door frames slightly askew. You’ll stop often to enjoy the view of the Dordogne beyond the red-tile roofs - and to rest your legs.

Reaching the top, you’ll find a magnificent castle, several cafes … and a parking lot. It turns out that you can drive (take the street off D703 from town center).

La Roque-Gageac is unique. It’s a vertical village, not like a city with skyscrapers, but because its houses are stacked almost one on top of the other as they climb halfway up the Dordogne’s north cliff. Residents walk up and down, rarely on the level, and must be in excellent shape - enough to scoff at the traveler exhausted by a climb to Beynac Castle. So steep is the town, in fact, that 40 years ago the clifftop broke loose, bulldozing several homes and their luckless occupants into the river.

Jammed between cliff and river, La Roque-Gageac at ground level is a cramped and overly commercial half-mile stretch of souvenir shops and cafes. But climb for an easy five minutes up one of the stepped paths, and you find yourself in quiet residential streets of limestone houses decorated with grapevines. At your feet you see the river (lift your gaze above the massive parking lots) and in the distance the woods and peaceful farmlands of the Dordogne valley.

Built in 1280, Domme is a beautiful fortified village of the type referred to as a bastide. Because the countryside was so dangerous during the Middle Ages, French and English kings and lords constructed walled towns to protect their lands. To attract residents, they promised a house inside the walls, farmland outside, exemption from military service, and protection (a promise often impossible to keep). Such bastides are characterized by a grid of narrow streets with an arcaded square in the center that contains a market hall and a church that was often fortified in case an invader breached the outside walls.

Whereas Beynac-et-Cazenac and La Roque-Gageac begin at water’s edge and clamber up a slope, Domme occupies the flattened top of a rocky crag. It’s a beautifully restored town of golden stone, with gorgeous views of the countryside and, being level, is a nice change if you’ve been climbing all day.

Domme’s square contains a church, the 16th-century Governor’s House now housing the tourist office, and a stone market building that covers the entrance to a cave where townspeople took refuge during the Hundred Years War and the Wars of Religion.

The square and nearby streets also contain a clutter of souvenir shops and postcard carousels. To get off on your own, simply go for a walk along the ramparts circling the village. You’ll see cozy houses that have been occupied for hundreds of years, the three town gates, and yellow canoes on the Dordogne hundreds of feet below.

If by now you haven’t had your fill of castles and fortified towns, you can visit the nearby Les Milandes, a chateau once owned by Josephine Baker, the celebrated American entertainer and heroine of the Resistance. Or drive to the remarkable, cliff-side pilgrimage town of Rocamadour (but now be ready to deal with serious crowds because Rocamadour hosts a million and a half visitors a year). Or, farther afield, you can visit St. Cirq-Lapopie, Cahors or Sarlat-la-Canda, three of France’s most beautiful towns. And the list goes on.

France’s prehistoric caves lie just a few miles to the northwest of Beynacet-Cazenac. In that region you can visit authentic caves such as those of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, or careful reproductions such as Lascaux II with its fabulous paintings of bison and flying-hooved antelope (Lascaux cave itself is now closed to the public to prevent further deterioration of the paintings). You’ll also drive past hokey outdoor tourist traps that feature mannequins of cavemen poised to spear unconvincing woolly mammoths with motorized heads and electronic roars (for different reasons, hilarious fun for both archaeologists and small children).

Once you’ve had your dose of the official sites, explore a few of the countless quiet villages that lie just a few miles north of the Dordogne River and outside any guidebook. How do you find these precious spots? Simply drive along gravel side roads until you get lost, then stop at the first village with a cafe or restaurant - even the smallest village has one or both.

Enjoy a two-hour lunch elbow-to-elbow with blue-shirted workmen or white-collar workers who have sneaked away from their city offices for a peaceful country meal. Afterward, walk around the town and then into the countryside past fields of hay, corn or sunflowers. Don’t be surprised if a farmer working in his field or a woman tending her garden starts a conversation. Rocamadour averages 4,000 visitors a day, but people here see six a year, and they’ll be curious about you.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO Lodgings in the restored villages on the Dordogne are limited and pricey, so you might consider staying in a larger town such as Sarlat-la-Canda, a few miles north of La Roque-Gageac, which also gives you easy access to the cave regions and the countryside. The Dordogne area is a center of French gastronomy. Expect weighty country cooking, however, not nouvelle cuisine that floats off your plate. Specialties are foie gras, confits (duck or goose legs or thighs cooked in their own fat), green salads sprinkled with walnut halves, pommes de terre Sarladaise (potato slices cooked in goose fat with parsley and garlic), omelettes with black truffles (a rarity these days with truffles selling for a couple hundred dollars a pound), and vin de Cahors, the regional red wine. One of the best restaurants in Domme is L’Esplanade, with meals from $35-75. But if you eat on their terrace overlooking the Dordogne valley, the view is better and meals are considerably cheaper. A good medium-priced restaurant in Sarlat is La Badaine (Rue du Presidial), with full-course dinners at $12 and up. Country restaurants provide superb meals starting at $10 (the Restaurant de la Poste in Gignac is a good example). Every river town has a business that rents canoes and kayaks (about $10/hour). If you’d rather not paddle, excursions on small passenger boats cost about $10 for adults. Tickets to the prehistoric caves sell out quickly in summer. The caves are cool all year, so bring a sweater or long-sleeved shirt. Sarlat is an antique center - look for the “SNACO” decal on the shop door, which guarantees the authenticity of merchandise. Other favorite regional buys are pottery, hand-embroidered cotton clothing, and Cahors wine.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Srory and photos by David Aldrich Special to Travel