If you are what you eat, then right about now, I must be fatty duck liver (or foie gras if you’re feeling fancy). And if you are what you drink, well, let’s not even go there! A weekend in the Périgord region of France (which is south of Poitiers and east of Bordeaux) is synonymous with gastronomy, breathtaking vistas, castles perched on cliffs, and the casual cave with paintings that date back 18,000 years – no big deal. Simply put, a weekend in the Périgord could be summarized as follows: eat, drink, hike, repeat.
Our home-base for the weekend was a campground near the medieval fortress of Beynac, which we could actually see from our campsite! From there, we were just a hop, skip, and a jump from some pretty amazing sites:
Sarlat: We were fortunate enough to visit this gorgeous medieval city on market day and stocked up on picnic supplies for weekend: cheese infused with nut liqueur, cheese infused with truffles, a creamy gorgonzola, sausages, and wine (of course!). (I may have forgotten minor details like towels for our camping trip, but I did pack three bottle openers.)
Lascaux: I’ve wanted to visit the Lascaux cave paintings for a long time. Well, I suppose that considering the fact that they date back 18,000 years, “a long time” is relative! When you visit Lascaux II today, you’re actually visiting a facsimile of the original cave, which was painstakingly recreated square centimeter by square centimeter to copy every nook and cranny of the cave’s surface, including the mind-blowing paintings that were recreated using the same materials and methods (as far as we can tell, anyway). The actual cave, which is located 200 meters away, has been closed to the public since 1963 when people realized that the carbon dioxide that the visitors were breathing out was destroying this treasure. The cave you visit today may not be “the real cave,” but the experience still gives you goose bumps. What motivated our ancestors to crawl into a cave with prehistoric candles made of animal fat and paint hundreds of galloping horses, bulls, and deer throughout this cave network? Your guess is as good as mine.
Domme: They call it one of the most beautiful villages in the world, and it’s easy to see why. After a lunchtime feast of regional specialties [insert fatty duck liver here], Nico and I used Domme as a starting point for a hike that was supposedly a 10-kilometer loop… After several hours of walking through forest and farmland without any sign of looping back to Domme, however, we decided to head back the way we came, and it’s a good thing we did - it turns out that we were actually following a 58-kilometer loop!!!
La Roque-Gageac: After our hiking expedition, we decided that we absolutely deserved a beer, so we stopped off in yet another breathtakingly gorgeous village nestled in the cliffs along the Dordogne River. Note to self for the next trip: make time for a canoe trip along the river!!
So there you have it: eat, drink, hike, repeat. Now those are words I could live by… ;)
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For more about the places we visited on our weekend in the Périgord:
https://www.beynac-en-perigord.com/en/the-fortress.html
http://www.sarlat-tourisme.com/en
http://www.lascaux-dordogne.com/en/lascaux-cave
http://www.les-plus-beaux-villages-de-france.org/en/domme
http://www.sarlat-tourisme.com/en/la-roque-gageac
