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Sunday, June 27, 2010

The Dordogne

The Dordogne River Valley was next on the docket as we worked our way south towards Italy. Sarlat would be home for the next three nights as we found a quaint little cabin just outside of town. One of the things we planned on here was a canoe trip down the river, but all the canoes were beached during our stay thanks to excessive rain upstream. Instead we had to visit the river towns and castles with the car. At the market in town we filled up on some area specialties, including truffles, native cheeses, and anything with walnuts. But the food this area is best known for sent everyone running. Foie gras (aka goose liver) is made by force-feeding the geese, which quickly fattens their liver. After a taste of pure goose liver, Cole was taste-testing anything else he could get his hands on to rid the taste.

Another big attraction here is the Cro-Magnon Caves. Famous all over the world, these caves contain paintings dating back as far as 18,000 BC (back when saber-toothed cats and wooly mammoths roamed the earth). Driven south by the Second Ice Age, the Magdalenians lived in this region from about 18,000 to 10,000 BC. The paintings are often very large and elaborate, with some running hundreds of feet long. They usually painted the animals they hunted (namely bisons, horses and mammoths), using the contours of the caves to create a 3-D effect with the animals’ body. We chose to visit Grotte de Font-de-Gaume, famous for its multi-colored paintings. To help preserve the art only 180 people are allowed to enter the caves per day. Everyone in our group spoke English, but the tour guide only spoke French. While the paintings spoke for themselves, we had to brush up on the details later with the internet.

After three rather wet days it was on to Carcassonne.


Notice the stairs on the dock leading down into the water. There are supposed to be four steps here leading down to a loading platform for the boats.
The kids were quick to take over the tree house at our apartment.
Grotte de Font-de-Gaume
I'll finish with a few blooms from the Dordogne.