Beynac on the Dordogne River, France        20/9/2009

View of Beynac from the river.

Early morning view from our windows.

On the terrace, overlooking the Dordogne River.

Beynac is a picture postcard medieval village that is built up a very steep hill, rising from the Dordogne River. It has an imposing castle up the top. One of the streets was used in the film Chocolat. Our little house for a week is about halfway up and is absolutely perfect. It is so peaceful and we have beautiful views of the Dordogne from the lounge, bedroom and terrace. We are looking forward to doing some of our own cooking and taking advantage of the fresh vegetables and fruit and lovely cheeses.


Sunday was a lazy day - we just pottered around, bought groceries, caught up on the washing etc. By Monday we were roaring and ready to go. We headed off through many picture perfect villages, stopping at Montignac for lunch and on to the fascinating caves Lauscaux 11. There are many limestone caves in the area with paintings and other evidence of pre-historic times. The Lauscaux 1 cave contains the worlds most famous cave paintings. It was accidentally discovered in1940 by some boys when their dog fell down a hole. Unfortunately, after 15 years of visitors, the real cave deteriorated so much that they have recreated a fake cave using the same materials and techniques as the original and that’s the one you visit today. Unfortunately you are not able to take photos in the caves.

Les Eyzies.

Next day, after visiting the markets at Le Bugue and picnicking in the forest, we went to see the real thing at Grotte de Rouffignac. Fantastic drawings of mammoths, horses, deer, bison etc. You go down the caves in an electric train. On the way home we stopped at a pretty village called Les Eyzies. It has caves with evidence of prehistoric activities above it.


That evening we had a wonderful meal at a restaurant in Beynac, sampling the local specialities, confit du canard, foie de gras and other duck specialities.