Sarlat is hosting the International Truffle Festival today and tomorrow. This two day event included two truffle markets, a re-enactment of truffle hunting, art depicting the truffle, cooking demonstrations, truffle products and truffle sampling. If you have never smelled a truffle, the odour is very distinctive and was quite evident when we got close to the market. Trying to describe it would be impossible. Truffles were on display and purchasers were picking them up and smelling the individual products. Prices ranged from €600 to €1000 a kilogram and are down this year due to a [View Full Entry]

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Carrefour in Brive Sandy and I are over our flu and decided to head to Brive today. Brive is a medium size city about 40 minutes north of here. It houses a wonderful cathedral, major SNCF station for the area and a Carrefour. Carrefour is the reason we made the trip. Carrefour is what Super Walmart should be. Built into a shopping centre it is huge with easily distinguishable departments - food divided into a bakery, fish market, meat department, huge cheese section(bien sur), hardware, books, clothing, furniture, etc. A bank, cleaner, DVD rental all can be found. Anything you [View Full Entry]

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Winter In Dordogne The owner of this gite said to me that some people find it too quiet. Sandra went to read in the sun on the patio while I wandered around the property. A chainsaw was buzzing in the distance, a hen next door was particularly pleased about something and was clucking noisily, one of the miniature horses across the road snorted while another slurped water from a blue bucket. It was anything but quiet however, the sounds were distinct. You could distinguish each individual sound. I don't understand the seasons here as it is only the tenth of January [View Full Entry]

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Happy New Year to everyone from Paris - our favourite city in the world. First let me say that we spent a wonderful evening last night at the 56th floor restaurant, Le Ciel de Paris - Tour Maine Montparnasse. The evening was clear and we had a window seat looking out at the Eiffel Tower. The view was spectacular and we enjoyed the hour's worth of fireworks (of which the Paris experts assured us there were none!). The Eiffel Tower remained lit after the 12 midnight hourly sparkling. The meal was a set menu and included unlimited white Pommery and Jacquart [View Full Entry]

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Three Days in Sete France We took three days to drive south to see our friends Ross and Maureen. They had rented an apartment in Sete. Sete is a fishing village of about 30,000 people on the Mediterranean. It is the second largest fishing village in France (Marseille is largest). Located in the Languedoc-Roussillon area, it is often referred to as the Venice of France. The area along the port has an old Atlantic City feel with side by side cafes, tourist stores, bars, restaurants, hotels. We were there during the second week of October and many of the seasonal places [View Full Entry]

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Still More Dordogne Food Reports Le Relais des Cinq Chateaux 24220 Vézac en Périgord Tel : 33-553-303-072 Fax : 33-553-303-008 e-mail : 5chateaux@perigord.com This was another revisit for us from our previous trip. Cinq Chateaux is a favourite of ours but never seems to get a lot of respect. I suspect it is partly because of the location in a modern motel/hotel place although some have reported terrible meals before Eric Vasseur took it over a couple of years ago. We arrived at 1:30 on a weekday and they were already frantic with a large group of French [View Full Entry]

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Dordogne Markets One of the joys for us is to visit the local markets that abound in France. The colours, the smells, the sounds, all gently assault you as you wander with the locals. There is also a sense of participating in a custom and commercial enterprise that has flourished for centuries. Living in a gite has allowed us to buy foods and prepare them in our own kitchen. We love the idea of shopping for what you need every day or two although it is hard for us to accept a partially stocked refrigerator. More food in our kitchen than [View Full Entry]

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Dordogne Food Reports Continued La Belle Etoile Hôtel La Belle Etoile Le Bourg 24250 - LA ROQUE GAGEAC - FRANCE Tél. : (+33) (0)5 53 29 51 44 Fax : (+33) (0)5 53 29 45 63 This is another one of those restaurants that we missed last year because of days of closing, timing and so on. It is located right along the road and a window table can be favourable. It is more formal and I would guess that the clientele tends to be older. We were there on a Saturday for lunch and most of the other patrons were [View Full Entry]

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Our Gite in Dordogne L’Ecurie at Le Fournil - Carlux - Dordogne We drove from Paris in mostly rain to our gite in the Dordogne. The highways are wonderful and we love the numerous “aires”, rest stops, along the way. Some are fully serviced with fuel, food, washrooms and picnic areas. Others have only washroom facilities and picnic tables. Our home for four weeks is an apartment attached to the residence of two former Canadians. Located in the town of Carlux (pronounced “Carloo”), it is about 20 minutes from Sarlat and central to most of the [View Full Entry]

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I probably shouldn't have put these two restaurants on the same page as the names are so similar. Be careful when you are looking at the pictures. La Metairie Dordogne Food Reports La Metairie - outside Les Eyzies near Font de Gaume This was a revisit for us. Eighteen months ago this restaurant was nearly empty for lunch. This time they opened the second dining room to accommodate. I am sure it was unexpected as the hostess pitched in and she, the regular waitress and a server handled all the tables. Most of the tables were people from the UK and [View Full Entry]

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