We spent the morning looking around Soulliac, catching up with our shopping and then went a few miles south to visit Rocamadour an important pilgrimage site with many chapels built in an impossible position on the side of a cliff. On the way we had an interesting hour looking around a fortified water driven flour mill, the Moulin de Cougnaguet. We spent the night at L’Hospitalet on the top of the Rocamadour cliff. I managed to pick up a signal on the van’s satellite dish, so we were able to watch England beat France in the rugby world cup semi final. We decided not to mention the result to the locals! ... read more

Today was a walking day. Beynac-et-Cazenac is one of the most impressive places on the Dordogne with a chateau situated on top of a cliff above a beautiful medieval village. Our site was only about a mile away and we were able to walk to it along the river. We visited the chateau, had a picnic up there admiring the view of the Dordogne valley and in the afternoon went for a short trip on a gabarre, a 19th century boat used on the river. Later we walked in the other direction to the next village and chateau, Castelnaud-la-Chapelle. ... read more

The weather improved with some sunny periods and we made our way back down the lovely Vezere with its spectacular limestone cliffs. We visited the small village of St Amand-de-Coly which has a large fortified church, Maison Forte de Reignac which is built into the side of one of the cliffs and has recently been restored and La Madeleine where troglodytes lived for several centuries on a meander of the river. We stayed at La Ferme du Pelou, a farm site in the hills overlooking the Madeleine section of the river. ... read more

We said goodbye to the other Peppers and slowly made our way eastwards along the Dordogne. The first stop was Bergerac, the largest town on the river. Then Issigeac, a medieval settlement 15K south of the river and finally Lalinde a town back on the river which has a canal bypassing some rapids on this stretch. We spent the night at Tremolet on our first Aire since we had the van. Aires are situated all over France and are hard standings provided by local authorities with basic facilities for use by motor home travellers. Tremolet is situated on one of two huge river meanders in the area giving spectacular views. ... read more

We left Bordeaux in the morning and made or way via minor roads and across both the Garonne and Dordogne rivers to another centre of wine production, St-Emilion. St-Emilion is a small ancient town built on a hillside and has may underground catacombs used for storing wines and an amazing underground church all excavated by monks between the ninth and twelfth centuries. We were able to visit them all and also purchased some local wine. We then drove back to the Dordogne and stayed the night at Ste-Foy- la-Grande, a Bastide town on the river. When I handed over my camping carnet to the campsite owner, he did a double take and said that another couple with the name of Pepper had booked in only an hour before. We quickly introduced ourselves to Alan and Margaret ... read more