Dordogne

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Thursday 30th October
Up a 8am and hit the road at 9:30. Heading? Perigueux. Small town with the obligatory old quarter. Beautiful cobbled streets, chic shops selling everything from jewellery to pizza in small portions. We visited the cathedral which has been completely rebuilt after the second WW. Visiting has become impossible as the rain persisted and became ropes from the sky. By 2pm Linda had enough. We were soaking wet, cold and miserable. Time to head for the Motorhome and hit the road for BERGERAC.

Bergerac: nice name and a nice little town. But we had a major problem finding somewhere to park the motor home. Only vehicles with less than 3.5tonnes are allowed in town. Our motor home is a 4tonnes, therefore we are not allowed to leave the inner ring road.
The first thing to do is to secure a nice camping site before it become toodark. We headed towards a Chateau TUQUET some 6 miles on the outskirt of Bergerac. The owner received us like you would receive and old lost friend. The lady of the chateau showed us where we can park the motor home for the night and invited us inside for a drink. The inside of the chateau hasn’t had a lick of pain or a door changed or anything done to it since it was first built some centuries ago. But once inside we felt straight at home.
We sat around this very very old and very very heavy table (it must’ve been built in-situs), with the mum, dad, daughters, in-laws, grand children, a young couple owning the restaurant nearby and more! We were a fascination to them. They were all wishing to travel some time in the future like we’re doing now. The questions about our travels came from all corners. The owner’son in law was particularly interested in revisiting Algeria. He remember spending a fortnight in the desert of Algeria in a place called Timimoun in the late eighty and would like to return for few months in the desert. The bottle of wine made in the chateau get gobble up quicker than they keep coming. We decline to drink any alcohol simply because I’m driving and Linda doesn’t drink alcohol. We had to extricate ourselves from this nice company and go an visit the town of Bergerac.
Having secured our place for the night, we drove to town. It’s almost 4:30 pm , its getting dark and the rain seems to have some catching up to do. Further more, only vehicle below 3.5toones can enter the town.
We abandoned the motor home at a petrol station on the outskirt and walked a long walk to the inner city. By the time we reached the old city it was dark, cold and miserable. Linda started to get irritable and choosy about what to visit! We spent maybe one hour looking at the most visited place like the market in the old town, the cathedral which was closed due to repairs etc…
At 7pm we decided we’ve seen enough and went back to ‘our’ chateau TUQUET.
For tonight a nice pizza in the oven was the choice of the day. And what a pizza it was! Mine was a tuner and cheese. Lovely..
After a very peaceful night, the next morning around 9am we set cap for Toulouse.

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