Our first motorhome trip to France Badefois-sur-Dordogne to Foie Gras farm
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Badefois-sur-Dordogne to Foie Gras farm
Another total blue sky when we awake on the aire at Badefois-sur-Dordogne, promising another hot day. We continue on our journey, the road following along the Dordogne river which is very picturesque. We have booked a ferry crossing from Caen to Portsmouth in two days time, that gives us 310 miles to drive to reach Caen.
We are starting to enjoy the lifestyle of wandering around France in our Hymer motorhome, it’s a continuous holiday. The Dordoggne river is wide and fast flowing, dotted with chateaux and castles perched high on the steep, rocky ridges overlooking the valley. Each small village or town has a Bastide or fortifications of some sort, such as Berbiquieres (which also had a good Aire for camping overnight), streets narrow and quaint, so the journey is endlessly fascinating.
We drive to Chateau Des Milandes, which is truly like a fairy take castle that Sleeping Beauty might have slept in. It was built in 1489 on a square grid but encompasses many towers and turrets, mostly round, with conical roofs. It was the home of Josephine Baker a black French music hall singer and entertainer, for almost 40 years, and she was responsible for the modernised interiors and sumptuous furnishings and bathrooms. By today’s standards the bathrooms are old hat, but when they were put in they must have been the latest and most extravagant fashion.
The gardens are magnificent too, having been designed and laid out in the formal style by a French engineer and architect in the later 1890s, complete with double water cascade and reflecting pool with fountains. We arrived early so it was not too busy, we had lunch in the car park and it was very busy as we came to leave. Further along the Dordogne we stop at Chateau Castelnaud, a magnificent 11th century castle that, like many castles fell into ruin, but was purchased in 1966 and has been almost completely restored.
The armoury, the trebuchets, the keep, the living quarters are now all housed in their original places and styles. Roofs, floors, walls and pavements have all been reinstated and it sits strategically high on the hillside overlooking a bend in the Dordogne between the chateaux of Beyrac and Vezac, one up and one down river. The climb up to the chateau (from the car park) was hard work in the heat, but well worth the afternoon spent there.
From Chateau Castelnaud on the road again, this time north on the D57 round Sarlat (a well-recommended tourist town) to Montignac, to an Aire on the foie gras farm at Bois Bareiroux la fermeaux du cannards. This working farm that raises ducks and geese and sells all kinds of fois gras products has space for about 15 campers in a large, well-kept field surrounded by fields of corn, sunflowers and walnuts. Geese and ducks run free on the farmland and are kept there by electric fences. With only three of us there (and no Italians…) it was quiet, rural and idyllic
Our motorhome trek around France: Badefois-sur-Dordogne to the Foie Gras farm
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