BOXES 158-159: SW France.

If you want to gaze at French castles, there's probably no better place to do it than to drive along--or maybe kayak or canoe down--the Dordogne River in southwestern France. The handsome complex you see here, jutting like a ship's prow above the waters far below, is one of several castles called Belcastel: this one is above the village of Lacave, where the River L'Ouysse runs into the Dordogne. Max and I caught this view during our drive north from Carcassonne (see previous post) to the Dordogne valley on our 1984 trip.

Our first stop beyond Carcassonne was the city of Albi, which has a tumultuous history (the infamous Albigensian Crusade is named after the city)--but I won't attempt to give information you can find in a travel guide or Wikipedia. We arrived during a late-afternoon heat wave with temperatures well into the 90s, and soon found ourselves confronted by the stunning Cathedral of Albi. It may be less famous than many a cathedral of Northern France, but it's unforgettable all the same. Sadly, my photos fail almost completely to capture it (but as usual, I'll show them anyhow). Here is my first view of it, from the east, in shadow as the sun was close to setting:

Some things you might notice at once: it's built of brick, not stone; the buttresses are built into the walls, not "flying"; and it looks more like a fortress than a church. Here's another very partial view:

In contrast to the austerity of the rest of the exterior, the main entranceway or portal is richly gothic:

And the gothic interior is staggering in its beautiful detail and color. Here are two photos I attempted:

For comparison, here are some photos I took with either my digital camera or my iPad when I revisited the church with my sister, brother-in-law and a friend in 2015:

(For professional photos, the Wikipedia entry is a good source.) Next to the Cathedral is the Bishop's Palace, converted into a Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in honor of the city's native son. We visited it the next morning, and admired not only the huge Lautrec collection but views of the bishop's garden alongside the River Tarn:

From Albi we drove north-northwest to our next stop, Cahors, situated on the Lot River among rugged limestone hills. The drive itself along the two-lane roads was extremely enjoyable; I see that I took one photo along the way of a country house:

We stayed overnight in Cahors, where we enjoyed the famous red wine (which in more recent times I learned is mainly the Malbec grape) and visited the Cathedral:

Maybe the most striking feature of Cahors was its medieval bridge, still in operation for cars as of 1984:

Our drive the next day took us a short ways to Rocamadour, a town and religious pilgrimage spot built on the side of a cliff above a stream. This was another truly fantastic site/sight:

Here are two more views as we approached the town:

As you would guess, the views looking down from the highest levels were pretty dizzying. In the next shot you can see Max, standing beyond the person in the red pants:

And here we're looking down on part of the church and the small town:

From Rocamadour to the banks of the Dordogne and the castle I placed at the top of this post, it was only about 10 miles farther north (according to Google Maps), but endlessly scenic, as the photos below reveal. I liked the typical farm houses of the region:

. . . and the glimpses of castles in the mist at the tops of hillsides:

Here are more farmhouses or country houses that we drove past:

And here is a town (or some sort of complex) that I can't name:

The next house and its adjoining tower (or whatever it is) struck me as exceedingly quaint:

And I remember thinking that the woods to the side of the road looked like Hobbit territory:

More houses:

And a farmyard:

As we crossed the Dordogne we saw canoers and yet another chateau:

Our plan was to follow the river westward, but first we took an excursion north to see the town of Sarlat, which must have been recommended by our guidebook. The road took us past at least one more photo-worthy chateau:

I'm sorry that I didn't take more pictures of Sarlat, a well-preserved medieval town whose stone buildings have a distinctive yellow color. But here are the three I took:

We had an excellent lunch in Sarlat, featuring a confit de porc and the most delicious potatoes I had ever tasted (sliced like home fries and sprinkled with an herb I couldn't identify); I later found that pommes de terres sarladaises were famous--the secret being that they're cooked in goose or duck fat.

After lunch we headed back toward the Dordogne, where along the way I took a couple of shots of yet another chateau:

At some point along the river there was an overlook above the valley:

There was also an inviting staircase, but we didn't take it (as far as I recall).

Winding along the river we passed through the picturesque town of La Roque-Gageac (but no photos) and eventually caught sight--beyond a couple of bends in the river--of the town of Beynac-et-Cazenac, where we planned to stay the night:

Here is Max contemplating the view:

Even before we got to Beynac we passed yet more impressive chateaus. This one is Castelnaud-la-Chapelle:

. . . and here, Chateau de Feyrac:

(No, I haven't remembered these names since 1984--I've only now hunted them up through Google Images.) The town of Beyrac is stretched along the river below a limestone cliff, with the chateau at the top.

The views of the river were, needless to say, very fine, and I remember having dinner on a sort of barge-restaurant, where the specialty was some sort of large, long crustacean. Incidentally, looking over my digital photos from my October 2015 trip I see that I took a picture from almost exactly the same spot:

The next day we walked up to the castle and looked down:

Our next stop after Reynac was the beautiful Cloister of Cadouin Abbey:

(I'm dismayed to realize, after finding the abbey's name through Google Images, that when I revisited this site in 2015 with Ellen, Tom and Maggie, I hadn't remembered that I'd been there before. Actually, in 2015 we got only a glimpse of the cloister through a door, since it was closed to the public at the moment. I'll add that I don't remember where Max and I had lunch that day in 1984, but I strongly recall the excellent one in 2015 just across the street from the abbey.)

At some point we visited the museum of prehistoric art and artefacts at Les Eyzies, though the famous caves weren't open for visitation. My next shot after Cadouin is of a river, either the Dorgogne or its tributary the Vézère, on the way to Les Eyzies.

I haven't so far been able to identify the next chateau, not to mention the location of the sunset (maybe we stayed a second night at Reynac):

But via Google Images I've ID'ed the next castle: the Chateau de Campagne, close to Les Eyzies, with myself looking proprietary in the second photo:

We eventually arrived in Perigueux, a regional capital with a quite unusual cathedral, though I found it difficult to get enough of it into the frame:

North of Perigueux we saw the Brantome Abbey on the Dronne River:

Farther downstream was the Chateau de Bourdeilles, consisting of a ruined castle with its keep, with a Renaissance palace next to it:

There was a mill on or near the property:

And that's it for photos of Southwestern France. We finally drove to Bordeaux, where we turned in the car and stayed overnight. I don't know why I didn't take photos of the city; but if people had taken foodie photos in those days I would certainly have taken a picture of Max with his three-tiered "plateau" packed with seafood at the restaurant we went to that evening. The next day we took a train to Paris, and got only a glimpse of the city as we taxied from one station to the next, to catch the boat-train to London, where, as we did the summer before, we met up with our friend Dede. In my next post I'll show a couple of places I visited in Kent and Surrey before heading back to the U.S.