France Passion!!!

My next few blogs will be dedicated to highlighting how
welcoming these French people were, how delicious their
produce was and how it was possible for a family with
small children to have a very low budget holiday packed
full of fun and excitement.

Thanks to France Passion we have had a holiday with a
real difference. Faced with the thick handbook of places
offering their land for a free stop over, we were certainly
spoilt for choice. We rolled up in Rusty, our old Renault
camper, welcomed by lovely farmers and producers
onto their land for a night's stay.
In the space of two weeks we stayed in places so diverse
they ranged from a snail farm to a deer park.
Our arrival during the late afternoons were always filled
with intrigue and the evenings turned into an adventure
for the children that often outshone the daytime activities.
We certainly had a 'taste' (quite literally in many cases) of
a real rural farming community.



Taking the ferry from Poole to Cherbourg we plodded
on through the stunning overcrowded fields of sunflowers
and thick green ears of corn until we reached our chosen
destination for the night- the Bisons du Périgord at Mialet
on the N21 Routes from Limoges to Perigueux.
The large family were busy setting up a ‘cowboy bar’ and
were cutting wooden stakes to create canopies over the hay
bales in preparation for the coming weekend festival. We
were invited to camp up against the wire fence where the
bison 'greeted' us just before sunset. A visit to the tiny shop
provided supper…bison steak, which I prepared very
simply with salt and pepper, served with rice and topped
with a sauce made from my 'now faithful' Marrakesh 35
spice mix.
We heartedly tucked into our dinner, feeling slightly guilty
that we were devouring one of their brothers.
Once the boys clambered into the camper for the night
they gazed out through their little upstairs window thrilled
with their night time viewing entertainment. Some time
later the bison wandered off for their night to the
accompaniment of two little boys snoring.



The next day we visited to Grotte de Villars, just west of
Thiviers and very close to the bison farm. This was a
fantastic cave full of huge caverns and an amazing collection
of beautifully illuminated stalactites and stalagmites.
The boys were also thrilled to see real cave paintings
created 17000 years ago.



We visited Sarlat (Sarlat-la-Canéda) market on Saturday.
Sarlat is famed for one of the best markets in France and
we weren’t disappointed. Colourful marquees and parasols
flanked the beautiful medieval streets around the centre.



Even non food produce was worth a browse. There were
handmade wooden toys, unusual musical instruments,
panama hats, baskets and fluufy kittens in cardboard
boxes.
Périgord is renowned for its fois gras and walnuts and
there was also no shortage of stalls selling flat boxes of
walnut gateaux and displaying tins of goose pates stacked
up in shiny little pyramids. The vegetables, as always in
any French market, were vibrant and glossy, and we
could smell the sweet scent of freshly cut melons,
strawberries and warm crusty bagettes.

.

We stopped at ice cream kiosks and cafes to sample the
somewhat pricy milkshakes and cornets and we spent the
best part of the morning walking, photographing,
munching and slurping. If we hovered too slowly at a stall
we were beckoned over to try a slither of saucisson or a
piece of juicy dripping melon. We weren't complaining!



What a treat too be entertained by the most animated
street musicians Les Brin’Chieux.

This energetic band of young musicians with dreadlocks
and bare feet, performed fabulous French folk songs .
The sound made by the girl playing a boom box made of a
big thick string attached to a bucket really appealed to our
deaf five year old.
We bought their CD and played ‘Lady Marlene’ at full
volume weaving our way through small country lanes
bordered with the now heavy headed sunflowers.
Now that’s what we call immersing yourself in the
heart of the country!



We picniced at the banks of the Dordogne river near Vitrac.
A spectacular spot with a safe and shallow beach of smooth
stones overlooking dramatic cliff faces. The crystal clear
warm water provided the boys with great fishing
opportunities and very soon they were catching an
abundance of tiny gobies with their big string nets.



We ate our chicken which we had bought piping hot fresh
from the rotiserie in the market at Sarlat accompanied by
huge tomatoes and jagged lettuce, followed by a fabulous
fresh fruit salad of melon, strawberries and apricots.



After a relaxing afternoon’s swim, we headed for the
France Passion site of Canoe Auberge rurale du Port
d’Enveaux in Saint Vincent de Cosse for the night. The site
was stunning. We parked up in the shade of the trees next
to a beautiful private beach. The family ran a kayak business,
little shop and restaurant. We were welcome to stay for as
long as we wished and decided to spend two days and
nights to take advantage of it’s facilities and beautiful location.
Well of course we were going to do kayaking!!
Two boys, water and boats….it kind of goes without saying!



The following morning we were transported by old mini-
bus to Carsac with the aim of paddling the 14km down
stream back to camp. Families could choose one, two or
four berth Kayaks and could have as much time as they
wanted to paddle back to camp.
The scenery was breathtaking and the Dordogne was clear
and wide, with the most amazing fairytale castles hugging
each bend in the river. The water was rich with wildlife;
dragonflies, kingfishers, ducks and herons and of course fish.
The boys were disappointed, however, in the lack of nibbles
on their slither of salami which they dragged from the back
of the boat on a pice of string.
We slowly paddled past Vitrac, Domme, Cenac, La Roque
Gageac and Beynac, stopping off at little deserted beaches
every so often for snacks from our pre-stocked larder…
namely the barrel in the boat.
We waved at the tourists sitting on the beautiful authentic
Gabarre boats which idled past; their tour guide giving a
running commentry to the passengers.
A ‘floating photographer’ cleverly perched on a raft took
our picture as we paddled past and we conveniently collected
the image from the beach next to him. As we climbed out of the kayak, our image could be seen on a big screen and was already burnt to disk for us to buy.
The beauty of modern technology!



Later in the day we visited the village of Beynac-et-Cazenac
and and La Roque Gageac to sample their crepes and buy
new jelly shoes to replace the ones which had been washed
downstream the day before. The latter village was charming
although with not much in the way of shops. However, we
climbed the steep steps up into entrance to the troglodyte
castle and were rewarded with stunning panoramic views
of the river.

We stayed the next few nights at two farms which produced
walnuts.

The Domme La Ferme de Turnac, which also produces Fois
Gras, had barns and fields full of adorable fluffy goslings.
We found the farm of Monobre in Sainte- Mondane tucked
away in a small village at the end of a sweeping avenue of trees.



The family produced walnuts and the lovely owner apologised
profusely for her lack of goods saying that she was just a
small scale farmer. She did not need to apologise as her shop,
although modestly stocked, had bags of the fattest walnuts
we had ever seen. She took her hammer and demonstrated
to the boys how to crack the shell and sample the nut. She
told them that walnuts would make them run fast. So without
hesitation they devoured the walnut and ran round her garden
shouting that 'it was true!' and they could run faster than
they had ever run before.
They came back desperate for more walnuts!



We bought a bottle of fine walnut oil for ourselves…hoping
it would give us some energy, needed for entertaining two
small boys. It tasted delicious – very woody and warming.
We parked for the night in the shade of the walnut trees
which were heavy with fat green walnuts. Our pitch was
guarded by a life-size papier-mache figure whom we fondly
named Mr. Walnut. We then tucked into our duck salad,
drizzled with our newly discovered walnut oil. Delicious!

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Do come back soon to The Chocolate Rucksack to
read more about our travels with France Passion,
or simply subscribe to the site for automatic updates.

Recipes
French Perigordine walnut cake
Gordon Ramsay's warm goats cheese salad
24 Duck recipes from channel 4
Skye Gyngell's -porcini, parmesan and celery salad with walnut oil

Books

France Passion

Rough guide to Dordogne

Dordogne and Perigord

Dordogne Mitchelin map

Dordogne DK Eyewitness guide

Films

Chocolat

The Messenger

D'Artagnan 's daughter

Young, beautiful and screwed up.

HAPPY TRAVELLING! HAPPY EATING!

Please leave a comment if you wish. I would love to hear from you!