Hangin' by a Moment

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Geo: 44.8345, 1.16487

Today we visited Château de Marqueyssac, which is a 17^th century chateau and gardens located at Vezac in the Dordogne. The château was built at the end of the 17th century by Bertrand Vernet de Marqueyssac, Counselor to Louis XIV.

In the 1860s, the new owner, Julien de Cervel, began to plant thousands of boxwood trees, of which today there are over 150,000. He had them carved in fantastic shapes, many in groups of rounded shapes like flocks of sheep. He also added linden trees, cypress trees, and stone pine from Italy, and introduced the cyclamen from Naples. Following the romantic style, he built rustic structures, redesigned the patterns, and laid out five kilometres of walks.

The gardens were opened to the public in 1996.

After walking around the gardens for a few hours, we came across what we thought was a rope adventure course. I put up my hand to do the course, as did Chloe and Ciara. Little did we know what was in store for us. It was more like a canyoning course, which saw us horizontally traversing across a cliff along a 200 metre course which takes around 45 minutes to complete.The cliff is around 150 metres high, and for someone like me who has never done canyoning or abseiling, it was seriously challenging. The introduction to the course requires stepping onto rock pegs (with hand pegs) and traversing a blind corner of the cliff over a sheer drop. Kim did the short course and decided that canyoning wasn't her thing.

You have to take a mobile phone with you on the course as the instructors cannot see you or hear you once you start the course.

After completing the course, Darrol and Liz lined up to do the canyoning course, and loved it.

We had lunch overlooking the valley including Beyzac and Castelnaud Castles.

We arrived home at around 6-00pm and then drove to the town of Domme for dinner. We watched the sunset from the Domme Bastide at around 9.45pm. That's summertime in Europe.

Our last day in the Dordogne tomorrow.

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Comments

[shaz]

I am on Kim's side, definitely not for a mature person