Some Things Are Different in France: Poultry

Yesterday we decided to try a roast chicken from the supermarket. Like at home, they’re prepackaged in a bag and kept warm. We got it home and wanted to heat it up a little. But when we got it out of the bag, it looked a little odd… At first J thought they had stuck […]

Hiking Périgord: Langlade

You’d think we’d know better by now…but no. When the forecast changed from rain to sun for the afternoon, we headed out for a hike actually expecting to stay dry. We started in the nearby village of St Vincent de Cosse, walking up a road that turned into a forest track. Seemingly in the middle […]

Sarlat’s Christmas Market

Sarlat is all dressed up with Christmas teddy bears and the holiday market is full of people sipping vin chaud (hot mulled wine) and contemplating gift purchases. We had thought vin chaud was an evening thing, but there people were, imbibing before noon! Father Christmas (Père Noël) shows up on posters around town, but we […]

Cahors

On Tuesday we drove an hour (but only 47 km (29 mi)) to the town of Cahors on the Lot river. The drive was beautiful, curving through valleys covered in the first frost we’ve seen. We had a fine lunch at Le Bergougnoux and then walked around town. Cahors is a pretty town, but hard […]

Hiking Périgord: Carlucet

We spent a week in Carlucet during our first trip to France together. We thought it would be fun to go see how it looks fifteen years later, so today we started our hike there. Some things seemed just the same – we recognized the B&B (now a gîte, or whole house rental) right away. […]

Hiking Périgord: Vitrac

We started Monday’s hike in the hamlet of Le Colombier between La Roque-Gageac and Vitrac. This handsome fellow was one of the first things we saw: He was either posing or studiously ignoring us… We were once again mainly walking through the woods. At the highest point of the hike we came out to a […]

Hiking Périgord: La Treille

Sunday’s hike wasn’t the most photogenic, as we mainly were walking through the woods, first on small roads, then on trails. We started in the parking lot of one of the local castles, Castelnaud, and our hike took us west and north. Castelnaud is high on a hill overlooking the Dordogne. We didn’t go in, […]