The Dordogne (Collonges-la-Rouge, Beynac, Domme, La Roque-Gageac, Sarlat, La Roque St. Christophe, Lascaux, Font-de-Gaume, Rouffignac, Carennac, Loubressac, Autoire, & Rocamadour)

Prior to planning my trip to France, I had never heard of the region called Dordogne. Provence, the Riviera, Normandy, Burgundy, and the Loire Valley were all well-known in my mind and probably to everyone else as well. It wasn't until I saw a television show that Rick Steves had produced on the Dordogne that I knew I was definitely going to go out of my way to ensure I would visit. The picture-postcard scenes I saw of people lazily paddling down a serene river with a golden-hued stone village as its backdrop captured my attention immediately. As I drooled over the images, it appeared as though it would be a photographers dream setting, so I was quite looking forward to photographing it myself!

The Dordogne is an area of Southwest France that is located within the region of Aquitaine, between the Loire Valley and the High Pyrénées. It is well-known throughout France as a gorgeous river valley with both natural and man-made beauty including rock-sculpted villages, quiet back roads, 1,500 castles, amazing panoramic vistas, foie gras, prehistoric caves art, and cliff-side villages that reflect perfectly upon the calm Dordogne River. For some strange reason, this region of France is not well-known amongst most visitors, but I was determined to find out more, so I decided to spend four nights in the area. This was definitely the part of my trip that I was most excited to see and experience!

Day 10 (Sunday, September 6, 2009)

I left Chinon and the Loire Valley bright and early in the morning, and began the long drive south towards the Dordogne, where I planned to spend four nights in the small village of Beynac. Prior to my arrival however, I had two stops planned along the way in order to break-up the long drive.

The first of these stops was the town of Oradour-sur-Glane. The first two hours and 15 minutes of the drive went smoothly, until I was about 15 minutes away from reaching the town. Although I was hesitant to do so, I listened to my navigation system when it instructed me to turn down a gravel road. Considering that I hadn't yet driven down a non-paved road in France, it seemed slightly peculiar, but I figured that the navigation system knew what it was doing. Unfortunately, it did not. After having turned down the road, I was soon greeted with some of the worse driving conditions I have ever seen. The road literally appeared as though it hadn't been driven upon in 40 years. There was so much brush covering the "road" that I wasn't quite sure if it was actually going to lead me anywhere but the woods. There were massive ditches and huge boulders that I had to drive over; remember, I had rented a very tiny little car, so I was absolutely panicked that I was going to either get stuck as I bottomed-out or that I would do so much damage to the underside of the car that it would stop working.

In addition to the problems described above, the road was so unbelievably narrow that even if I had wanted to turn around (which I did!) I wouldn't have been able to; I would have had to reverse, which I didn't think was much of a better option than if I continued to drive. I just kept envisioning getting stuck, or the paint job getting so scratched up from the amount of trees and bushes that were brushing up alongside it. I kept telling myself that there was no way this road could continue on for much longer, but of course, I was completely wrong! Nearly 15 minutes after I had initially turned down the road, I finally saw a "real" road (i.e. paved) in sight! I was so stressed out by this point that I could barely breath; thankfully, I was only minutes from Oradour-sur-Glane, so I had some time to try and relax in order to prepare seeing what I knew would be a very emotional visit.

Sign to Oradour-sur-Glane.

Entrance sign to Oradour-sur-Glane.