On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
(Our daughter spent a year at the University of Grenoble. In June we headed to Europe to help her pack up for home. Our first trip to Europe since our honeymoon… ) After we left Grenoble we took a couple sides trips (Copenhagen; Trondheim), then headed to the medieval village of Limeuil in the Périgord region of southwestern France, at the confluence of the Dordogne and Vézère rivers. Not far from the famous caves of Les Eyzies. My British sister-in-law’s parents have a cottage there (her father taught at the Sorbonne) and we arranged to stay for a week. And pretend we were French. Sort of.
View of the two bridges that cross the Dordogne and Vézère rivers.
Narrow lane flanked by limestone buildings in the lower part of the village. With a bridge in the background. The government has strict regulations to preserve the exteriors of the medieval buildings. On our prior visit to Limeuil, we met the village’s master craftsman who repaired buildings as needed. He had our house key, and my husband kept practicing the necessary french » “Monsieur Migaux, donnez-moi la clé, s’il vous plaît.“
Our cottage. Since we last stayed in Limeuil, the village ambience has changed. Previously there was a bakery that sold bread & pastries made on the premises, a glass-blower, a hair salon… These vestiges of a functioning town have disappeared, so we would head to La Bugue for provisions.
Now, placards posted around the village describe various historic buildings. In fact, when we sat on the front porch, I felt we should dress in medieval clothing and hide our laptop…
View of our cottage to the right and the main house to the left. The facing wall of the main house is part of the original village fortification and more than a meter thick.
Close-up of the village wall just below the main house. No idea where that little door leads…
Very cool building built into the cliffs across the ravine from our cottage. For those who like detective novels, I highly recommend the Bruno series by Martin Walker which are based in this region—starting with ‘Bruno, Chief of Police’ [2009].
Curious and hungry donkey.
You Don’t Fix a Broken System By Making It Worse For Everyone, You Fix It By Making It Better For Everyone
Benw
Omg rural France is such a trip! I worked on a project that was in the Ardennes region. Sometimes I flew into CDG and took the trains there, and sometimes into Brussels and rented a car to drive down. Your pics are so evocative of those drives. I distinctly remember one drive to Dinant (on the Belgium side) with Radiohead’s OK Computer playing and everything seemed so surreal but also so quaintly pastoral.
Another Scott
Very nice pictures and an evocative narration. Thanks very much.
Cheers,
Scott.
Auntie Anne
The Bruno books are terrific! So neat to see the Dordogne – thank you.
Kattails
Yes, really evocative and lovely photos. However, it’s sad to see that phrase “These vestiges of a functioning town have disappeared”. So depressingly true in so many places in our so-called advanced world.
Nevertheless, will look out for the detective series and enjoy the beautiful countryside, thank you!
JanieM
Very trippy to be using a laptop in such surroundings, although in my experience it gets to feeling normal pretty fast. The first time I saw a clothesline with laundry drying on it strung across 800-year-old stone ruins in Ireland, I was blown away. After a while, I didn’t even notice.
Lovely pics — thanks for another nice tour of a place I not only will never see, but never knew was there.
way2blue
@Kattails: Yes. It was a bit jarring to return to this village after 20+ years and see the changes. The French were more forgiving of my broken french and the autobahn had replaced the windy country roads. But still a lovely spot. Plus we didn’t need find a bank to change traveler’s cheques anymore.
Comrade Colette
Limeuil! Monsieur Colette and I spent a couple of memorable nights there, punctuated by a delicious dinner at a restaurant with a sour-faced maître d’hotel who wanted to close early and a very kind chef who insisted on feeding us anyway. Funny how there are little moments you remember 20 years later.
And yeah, so many of those little villages used to have a butcher, a baker, and a greengrocer, and now at best they have one small shop with a few sad lettuces and a dépôt de pain (looks vaguely like a bakery but bread not made on the premises).
stinger
Great pictures of a beautiful place. Stuff of dreams. Thank you!
KSinMA
Lovely. Thanks!
evodevo
Our favorite part of France…we spent the night in Beynac in 2004 and wandered around the region for a couple days….we stopped some guy in one of the little towns asking for directions in my bastard French, and he turned out to be a British retiree (lucky for me and my language skills). I can see why they would gravitate there.
And I started reading the Bruno books because of our trip….LOVE them…
dp
Fantastic pictures. I’ve only ever done French cities.
J R in WV
We stayed in a little hotel in Les Eyzies our one trip into rural France. It was an Archaeological Institute of America tour led by an English professor visiting ancient cave paintings in NE Spain and SW France, along with museums and archaeological digs in the area. Fascinating trip. At the end I had arranged to travel to Paris from Toulouse where the tour ended and we spent two nights there, great food!
The whole trip was great food, even in tiny bars in rural communities. Road side bars and bars in alleys in rural towns in Spain and France have better food than many high-end, exclusive and expensive restaurants in the US. Although some urban bar/restaurants were merely acceptable, that was the exception. I think a poorly managed place like that would go broke really fast in Europe.
We ate at an Indian place in Toulouse, they were in an alley behind our hotel, was very good typical Indian food. We didn’t want to get too far from the hotel lest we get lost in medieval streets and alleys…
Thanks for the photos!!
way2blue
@Comrade Colette:
One moment from this trip stands out for me. We’d arrived in Tours late afternoon, and my husband was circling a roundabout trying to figure out which road to spin off on for our hotel. A vespa mis-guessed which road we would chose and collided with our car. My husband & daughter hopped out. The driver had a large box fastened on the back of the vespa full of pizzas. Smooshed pizzas. And wanted my husband to pay for them. Our daughter told Dad to get back in the car & argued with the driver in French. He called his boss who told him that he was a fault. Even so, I think my husband gave him 10€. And then the pizza delivery guy wanted to give us the stack of pizzas. Merci non.
WaterGirl
I love this set. Even the donkey!
LiminalOwl
Lovely pictures. Thank you.