![]() When the raiders came, residents gathered their kids, hauled up their animals, and pulled up the ladders. A clever relay of river watchtowers kept an eye out. While the terraces had been inhabited as far back as prehistoric times, the information and reconstructions presented inside focus on the Middle Ages, when people settled here to steer clear of Viking raiders sailing up the river. Christophe, a series of river-carved terraces, which has provided shelter for 55,000 years. In the knights’ mess hall, it felt as if the cooks had just taken a break. The castle was lit by little oil lamps – puddles of light giving the spiral staircase a visual rhythm. It was like stepping back into medieval times. And the noble-lady of the castle herself – land rich but, apparently, cash poor – sold me a ticket to enter and prowl around. Pulling my canoe up in Beynac, I hiked up to the brooding, cliff-clinging château. On one particularly memorable Dordogne day, I enjoyed a perfect storm of travel thrills. Two of the most picturesque are La Roque-Gageac, a strong contender for “cutest town in France,” and Beynac, a well-preserved medieval village that winds like a sepia-tone film set from the river to the castle above. There’s always a place to stow the canoe, and plenty of welcoming villages. Delights are revealed around each bend, and you can pop ashore whenever you like. I can’t think of a more relaxing way to enjoy great scenery while getting some exercise. When I’m here, one of my rituals is exploring the riverside castles and villages via canoe. Its highlights include rock-sculpted villages, prehistoric cave paintings, fertile farms surrounding I-should-retire-here cottages, floats along the river, and a local cuisine worth loosening your belt for. Whether young or old, visitors to the Dordogne are easily charmed by its unforgettable blend of man-made and natural beauty. ![]() I’d take her for a lazy canoe ride down the river, then cap the day with a great riverside meal – letting her enjoy goose liver (explaining what it was later) with the finest glass of French red wine she’s ever had. The province used to be called Périgord and today people from Dordogne are often referred to as Périgoudins.A reader once asked me if I were to bring a spry, 73-year-old grandmother to Europe, where would I go? My response: France’s Dordogne River Valley. Its permanent population is less than two million. Away from the rivers, the fertile soils of the Dordogne are home to poultry farms and truffle-filled woods. To the east, the land around the rivers flows through gorges and valleys. Population centres are based mainly along the region's rivers, as historically they provided transportation routes for export. Over 100,000 hectares of land are dedicated to vines. Divided into four areas- the Périgord Noir (Black), the Périgord Blanc (White), the Périgord Vert (Green) and the Périgord Pourpre (Purple), the geography and natural resources of the Périgord make it a beautiful, unspoiled region rich in history and wildlife. The Dordogne is the major river that flows through the region, coming from the Auvergne mountains where the Dore and the Dogne join, to the Garonne estuary just north of Bordeaux. The Tarn and the Aveyron flow into the river Lot which is the major river in the south, again reaching the Garonne and then flowing out to the Atlantic.
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