For
a good many years,
British travellers have been fascinated by, '
the
Dordogne", an area of France that conjures up an image of
a return to rural life at a slow pace; it has even been said that the
Dordogne, for the English, is imagined not really as an area of modern
France - which it is - but more as an imaginary reproduction of a
bygone rural England - which of course it is not - rather like a warmer
and sunnier version of the old Cotswolds, where the houses are built of
honey-coloured stone, the meadows are green and rich, the
locals all friendly and obliging country folk, and bemused French
visitors can actually watch people playing cricket on the green - which
indeed they can! Like Tuscany, the word Dordogne has become laden with
bucolic symbolism and imagery to such an extent that it is useful to
dig well below the surface and clarify what, exactly, the word
"Dordogne" really means, and what this area really is.
In fact, the word "
Dordogne" has two
different meanings. In the oldest sense of the word, it is a long
river, a tributary of the Gironde that rises in the department of the
Puy de Dome, in the mountains of the Auvergne, and flows down through
the regions of Auvergne, Limousin, Midi-Pyrénées
and Aquitaine.
The second meaning of the
word is a French department (county), the "Département de la
Dordogne", surrounding a long stretch of the lower Dordogne between
hills and plain.
Virtually the whole area
is attractive hill country, full of old villages, castles, small
country towns and plenty of scope for relaxing and enjoyable holidays.
Much of the area, particularly further into the hills, is very
much "off the beaten track", and just waiting
to be discovered.
The
department of
the Dordogne (24)
The
heart of the "Dordogne"
area is, naturally, the department of the Dordogne, centered on its
capital
Perigueux:
the French tend to refer to this area not as "la Dordogne" but as "le
Périgord", and in France the area is most famous for its
gastronomic delights, notably paté de foie gras, walnuts and
truffles. For tourists, the epicentre of this Dordogne is an area known
as "le
Périgord noir",
situated in the south east of the department. Centered on the
town of Sarlat and the river Dordogne, this is the classic Dordogne,
with its limestone cliffs, castles (such as Beynac) and picturesque
villages such as Domme and Castelnaud, and also its world-famous caves
with their prehistoric paintings. There is a museum of prehistory at
Les Eyzies, while the grotto at Lascaux boasts the world's most famous
prehistoric cave paintings. On account of the damage being caused by
tourists, the real Lascaux cave, a UNESCO world heritage site,
was closed to visitors back in 1963, but an exact replica has
been carved out underground close to the original location, and the
visitor experience is totally authentic. There are other prehistoric
caves that can be visited at Font de Gaume and Cap Blanc, and even a
prehistoric theme park, Prehistoparc. Perigord Noir is not a mountain
region; it is hill country, mostly at an altitude of between 200 and
350, metres.
West of Perigord Noir lies
Périgord Pourpre,
the area round
Bergerac;
this is a low lying area, the limits of the coastal plain, a region
most famous for its wines and vineyards. As for the north of the
department, this is known as
Périgord
Vert, Green Perigord, a greener and more undulating region
of small villages and farms, streams and rivers.
Upstream from the Dordogne
department, the hills get higher and the valley gets deeper. A
traveller moving upstream would reach, in succession, the following
departments, which are described in more detail below:
Lot, Corrèze, Cantal, Puy de Dome.
The
department of
the Lot (46)
The river Dordogne just
passes through the northern tip of the Lot department; but this is a
department that has also become very popular with visitors from
Britain, Holland and other parts, and the Lot valley in particular has
acquired an attraction of its own. Like the Dordogne, this is limestone
country, and until recent years was actually more off the beaten track
than the Dordogne. The department boasts one of France's major
tourist attractions, the village of Rocamadour, perched up and down a
steep cliff face overlooking the valley of the Ouysse. Like the
Dordogne, the department has a number of spectacular underground caves,
including the Gouffre de Padirac.
In the north west of the
department, the land is higher, rising to 500 metres; but this is still
delightful and soft countryside. The capital of the Lot is the
beautiful small city of
Cahors,
famous for its mediaeval streets and its unique surviving 14th century
bridge, the Pont de Valentré.
Cahors
was once capital of a region known as the
Quercy, which is
nowadays made up of virtually the whole of the Lot department, plus
part of the Lot et
Garonne
department to the south west. The name Quercy derives from the Latin
word quercus, meaning an oak tree, and naturally this is a region rich
in oak forests - not the massive oaks of old England, but smaller oaks
of southern Europe. The Quercy is a limestone plateau, cut
through by numerous streams and rivers.
The
Department of Corrèze
(19)
Before entering the Lot,
the river Dordogne flows through the department of Corrèze,
capital
Brive la
Gaillarde, which is administratively part of the Limousin
region. We are now in the Massif Central mountains, and apart from the
western tip of the department, most of the Corrèze lies
between the altitudes of 600 and 800 metres. With higher hills, the
climate is not so dry and hot in summer as the areas to the south west,
and Corrèze boasts a fine collection of very beautiful small
towns and villages, notably Collonges la Rouge - so named on
acount of the red sandstone from which it is built - Curemonte and
Turenne.
Cutting through the south
west part of the department, the river Dordogne passes through some
beautiful small towns and villages, such as Beaulieu and Argentat; and
north of Argentat, the hills get higher and the valley deeper as the
traveller enters the higher reaches of this river, the Dordogne gorges.
From near its source in the Puy de Dôme, down as far as
Argentat, the Dordogne has cut a deep valley through the mountains. Up
above, the plateaux of the western Massif Central offer wide areas of
upland farm country, fields and forests; this is an area which tends to
remain green all through the summer, even in the driest of years.
The Cantal (15) and the Auvergne
For a distance of some 30 kms, the river Dordogne forms the border
between the Corrèze and the Canal departments, and thus
between the Limousin and the
Auvergne.
The Cantal,
capital
Aurillac, really
is mountain country, with peaks culminating at over 1800 metres. The
Dordogne valley at this point is marked by a series of major dams, such
as the Barrage de l'Aigle, providing hydro-electricity to the French
grid for over half a century . Behind the dams, in a steep wooded
valley, the long lakes offer plenty of opportunity for water
sports. The Cantal is reputed to be one of the coolest departments in
France, which is not suprising since most of the department lies at
over 800 metres; this is much appreciated by people who want to escape
the dry heat of midsummer. The high peaks of the Cantal, consisting of
a massive
volcanic area, offer proper hill-walking country, as well as skiing in
winter.
The source of the River Dordogne is in the
neighbouring department of the
Puy
de Dome, at an altitude of almost 1800 metres, on the
slopes of the Puy de Sancy, the highest peak in central France.
The
Department of
the Aveyron (12)
The
Department of the Aveyron (capital
Rodez)
includes much
of the central areas of the valley of the Lot, which is an increasingly
popular area. It is however a very varied department, running from the
low-lying area round Villefranche de Rouergue in the west, an area
similar to the Quercy, to the moors of the Aubrac, at 1200 metres, near
Laguiole in the north, the dry uplands of the Causse du
Larzac, near Millau in the east, and the rolling agricultural
countryside, with its fields and hedgerows, almost English-looking, in
a sandstone area known as the Ségala, in the south.
The valley of the Lot runs parallel to that of the Dordogne, and
generally divides the limestone causses area to the south from the
higher mountains to the north. The Lot valley is low-lying compared to
the countrside around it; the traditional buildings in this area are
roofed with local slate or shale.
