French palate ... Chateau de Castelnaud near the Dordogne River.Credit: Getty Images
At a villa in the Dordogne, Susan Bredow and a party of old friends explore castles and the finer points of confit.
The small hotel foyer is overcrowded and the noise level has got the better of the lone male receptionist, who asks us, nicely, to go elsewhere.
Eight Australian friends with luggage have reunited in this small space and the excitement and chatter continues as we tow our gear out to the busy street lined with market stalls. The receptionist doesn't know that the talk will continue well into the night. Some of us have known each other for 30 years. Each of us is at home wherever we are together.
After more than a year of planning, we have arrived in Sarlat-la-Caneda, a town in the French region of Dordogne. It's as pretty as a picture, the sort of picture Disney might create, with narrow cobbled streets and old limestone houses with flower-filled planter boxes at each window.
We're here to celebrate a significant birthday and, with a focus on fine food, the markets in front of us are as good a place to start as any. And we're hungry, one of the few times we'll feel this way in the next week.
We line up with the locals and order in school-girl French, while fiddling with translator apps on our smartphones. All pronunciations we attempt sound Strine.
We've rented a villa online and we're relieved that it's even better than we expected. With our provisions in hand, we drive our two hire cars a couple of minutes out of town and sweep into a perfect driveway, evoking just the right element of suspense, along an avenue of trees and around a corner to the front door of Villa Rosa.
There are six bedrooms and eight bathrooms spread over three floors. There are eight of us, including two couples, so it's a perfect match.
Villa Rosa is set on a couple of hectares of gardens, which include a tennis court, swimming pool and a summer house with its own rustic kitchen. Here we have alfresco lunches most days and dinner on several mild starry evenings. Our first meal, though, is in the main dining room on a heavy mahogany table and it's a robust affair.
During the next week we will not stray more than an hour's drive from Villa Rosa, yet within this radius is more than a week's worth of sites and explorations, all linked by the river. The Dordogne, and more particularly this small area within the Perigord Noir, is a mine of mediaeval history.
We sit together in the evenings and peruse maps and plan our adventures. There is an easy consensus: Chateau de Castelnaud, Chateau de Hautefort, the cave paintings at Lascaux, Rocamadour, Les Eyzies, Sarlat's shops and the former home of the singer Josephine Baker, Chateau des Milandes. Every night we will debate the itinerary all over again but end up changing little.
It's spring and roses are growing in seemingly impossible places and producing more blooms than can be real. The roads thread through fields of corn that feed ducks and geese, which in turn produce the fat livers for pates and the legs that become confit. We head first to Domme, a fortified town a few kilometres from Sarlat, where from ancient ramparts we have the most wonderful view of the Dordogne River and the green valley below.
At a cafe in the village square we order beer and admire a car rally of eccentric veteran vehicles manned by goggled drivers. Part of us wants to leave with them but there is tonight's birthday dinner to make.
Preparations take most of the afternoon and involve their own form of emotional adventure when the mussels for the soup smell too strong and are discarded and, it being a Sunday, we find there's no supermarket open in Sarlat. We're missing bread, sugar and sour cream. The recipe for the main course - duck with Perigord sauce of mushroom and truffles - is hastily adapted.
The other small issue is the shortage of wine, due to the enthusiastic welcoming party the previous evening, and this drives our two blokes to continue searching Sarlat. Eventually they find a petrol station with wine and the evening is back on track.
We head out every day in our cars. The village of La Roque-Gageac is nine kilometres from Sarlat, and a round-trip boat tour from La Roque along the Dordogne in a vessel modelled on the barges that worked the river clears our heads. After lunch we head up the hill to Les Jardins de Marqueyssac, a former manor house with extensive gardens and which is famous for its topiary, views of the Dordogne valley and long, shady avenues.
On another day, we head to the Lascaux caves, 20 kilometres from our villa. The story of the discovery by a boy and his dog of the caves and their 17,000-year-old paintings is compelling and the paintings themselves, re-created in man-made caves within a couple of hundred metres of the secret location of the real artworks, is a worthwhile day trip. Today we lunch down the road in picture-perfect Montignac. After the plat du jour menu of chevre (goat's cheese), duck confit and meringue we visit the mediaeval Chateau de Losse on the side of the Vezere River 10 kilometres away.
After three days of sightseeing, we leave the cars and head on foot into Sarlat and to its Wednesday market. We choose artichokes and tomatoes, broad beans and goat's cheese. One man has a stand selling only cepes (porcini mushrooms) in various forms, another has a table laden with truffe (truffles).
There are slices of saucisson to taste in flavours such as wild boar or duck with walnuts and we buy very expensive foie gras. It's the best there is, we're promised, and after an online search to learn how the pale, fatty contents in a vacuum-sealed bag should be cooked, we quickly pan-fry the thinly sliced liver in butter and swoon at the result. Fat spears of white asparagus are steamed and served with more butter and lemon juice, followed by a classic boeuf bourguignon. The next day I buy jeans that are a size larger.
Our two men, hunters and gatherers by nature, soon fall into the role of bringing home the wine. At first they go for quality but, given the amount being consumed, start shopping for value. This poses no problem, as French table wines are reasonably priced and quite drinkable.
At Beynac is another mediaeval castle on top of the hill with more lovely views of the valleys and river. The English king Richard I lived in a turret and scenes from Luc Besson's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999) were filmed here. It seems impenetrable, with its fortifications on a steep cliff, but was conquered twice, says Bob de Beynac, as we name the orderly who comes to retrieve us after closing time. He's very nice about our tardiness, especially when he learns we have come from Australia. He uses giant keys to let us out through a narrow, dark and damp corridor he claims has ghosts.
The next morning we're off to the pilgrim's post, Rocamadour. We walk the 12 stations then lunch on duck confit. The afternoon is spent at Josephine Baker's chateau, which looks very Snow White from the outside and inside is a museum of the singer's life, with her decor of extraordinary black-tiled bathrooms and opulent dining room.
Our final day is spent wandering the fortified towns of Belves and Monpazier. Back at Villa Rosa for the last time, we make a vain attempt to empty the contents of the fridge and what remains of the drinks cabinet.
There are inevitable signs of withdrawal from our dream in Dordogne. "Oh dear," emails Jane a week or so later. "Went to the supermarket today and not a chateau in sight."
FAST FACTS
Getting there
The TGV goes from Paris's Gare Montparnasse to Bordeaux and connects with a local train to Sarlat-la-Caneda, a trip of about 5½ hours.
Staying there
Weekly rates at Villa Rosa, which sleeps up to 12, are from €1350-€2000 ($1850-$2750). See dordognevillasdirect.com/property/Villa_Rosa.html.
Sarlat is an ideal base from which to explore Dordogne.
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