On our way up North we stopped at one of the other main attractions in the Perigord-Noir area which was the Chateau do Hautefort. We loved the area and would like to come back some time to see more – there’s certainly loads more to do here – including the Caves at Lascaux – as there wasn’t enough time. He was a bit of a laugh so it was pretty entertaining. He even spoke a bit of English which was very helpful. The guide was great and gave us a commentary on the history of the town and the main points of interest. The highlight, other than a great lunch, was a trip up the bell tower for the views (it’s not on a hill so there wasn’t a natural viewing point) – so we got in the elevator, expecting it to go up to a viewing platform so we could walk around it and look over the town… no! it was like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s great glass elevator – it literally emerged from the top of the tower and we couldn’t get out – the sides were glass so we could see all around – I tried not to think of the fact that we were stationary at the top of this tower with nothing underneath us. The range of beautiful local produce on offer was fantastic. The market is reputedly one of the best in France, and I can well believe it. The town was at its height of opulence in the 15 th century until the French revolution, when all the noble families were slaughtered and the buildings eventually became used for other purposes – like schools, monasteries and convents. We had two nights in the delightful town, and spent market day (Friday) exploring the town before heading north. We sampled some of these on our next stay a short 15km drive away at Sarlat-la-Caneda. The local gastronomic delights are foie gras, walnuts and truffles. It’s famous for the castles, prehistoric caves and cave dwellings, medieval towns and fortresses as well as the rivers Dordogne and the Lot. The Dordogne region (as the Brits know it) is really the Perigord area – the French apparently just see the Dordogne as a river. The weather was pretty good, mainly sunny, showers and a bit of thunder bubbling up in the early evenings. It was flowing really fast so you had to swim against the current and you didn’t actually go anywhere so it was like a training pool! We had 3 nights here cycling and swimming and resting up before going on to our second Dordogne stop. We finally arrived at St Julien-de-Lampon at the campsite which literally was on the banks of the river so we could swim in it. It was a bit hairy as we approached the campsite on the last stretch as we went under some overhanging rocks and the road was very narrow with a steep drop down to the river. The drive up was a bit too long really – it should have been about 4 hours but by the time we’d got food, fuel and stopped for coffee and then lunch we were about 6.5 hours getting there, but what a drive!!!! Absolutely beautiful scenery, particularly as we approached the Dordogne and went past lots of little towns with chateaus and forts and medieval buildings. The forecast wasn’t looking great, and anyway we’d seen enough of the area so decided to head off to the Dordogne on our friend Nick’s recommendation. The sunset was spectacular that evening and followed by a lovely hot sunny day the next day which we spent at the beach after a short cycle down to the next town. The next day brought a dense sea mist which we kept hoping would clear (it eventually cleared just before sunset!) so we had to find other activities – a cycle along one of the many cycle paths into the marina and back, followed by joining in with a litter pick on the beach in that afternoon. We had a thunderstorm the first night which literally made the van move, but in the end it didn’t rain that much. We went to the beach as much as possible while the weather was nice. The town centre is very pretty with a nice square and some decent restaurants and bars. It has 8 big sandy beaches, and a huge busy marina. As it’s Atlantic it gets big waves, and there were a lot of surfers out. It is part of a long, long stretch of 200kms of sandy coastline all the way up to and past Arcachon near Bordeaux. The sun was out! It was hot! Alleluia! Capbreton is a surfers’ paradise, a west-facing beach on the Bay of Biscay. We skirted past Biarritz and stopped at Capbreton in the Landes area for 3 nights. It was very green with lots of trees, pastures and typical Swiss-chalet style houses. We had a lovely drive across the northern stretch of the Pyrenees from Pamplona, which had totally different scenery to the southern stretch which was much more dry and barren.
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