Ticking all the Boxes and Bidding Adieu: Highlights of the Dordogne Part III

“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.”

 – James Michener

Most of our days in the Dordogne were unplanned, we would decide based on the weather what if anything we would do that day. However my not negotiable "to do list" included two things, firstly to canoe down the Dordogne River past the wonderful castles, which are a remnant of the Hundred Years War and secondly lunch at the Alberge De Layotte. These things require some planning.

Firstly the canoeing required a nice sunny day and the Alberge required a free table, and both could have been a problem. Within minutes of arriving at Camping Mathevies we made friends with a lovely family from Belgium and the kids were immediately inseparable. When we told them our must do’s we all agreed to do both together. Our kind landlords rang the Alberge for a reservation for lunch that day and the best they could do was a table for four on our last day which we decided to go for.

We booked the canoeing for the next day, but after a rainy morning we postponed until the next day. Luckily the next day dawned clear and bright, perfect canoeing weather and so we were off. Arriving at our starting point 1km before La Roque-Gageac, we donned our life jackets and packed our picnics into big waterproof tubs and with one adult and one child per canoe we set off for our 9km expedition.

La Roque-Gageac

At the beginning, full of energy and enthusiasm, we rowed along the river quite easily. Negotiating the river boats and riding in their wakes was good fun and not at all difficult. There is no better way to see that castles of the Dordogne than from the river itself, especially when you family is a bit castled out after seeing quite a few over the past six months.

Castelnaud la Chapelle

One we reached Castelnaud-la-Chapelle we put in for a much needed lunch break believing we were half way along our journey.

Beynac-et-Cazenac

The kids happily played in the river until we decide it was best we move along in order to get to our pick up point in time. The second half of the trip was difficult for me as first mate Julian didn’t do much in the way of helpful rowing. I was envious of the couples I saw efficiently rowing along together.

In the end I was well behind the group and when Rob and his crew of two girls waited for me Julian bailed out into their canoe as I was just too slow for him. Once alone I got along a lot better, but wished I had a nice little kayak. The whole trip was delightful, and I decided that alone I wasn’t concerned with going fast but instead enjoyed the serenity of a pleasant sunny day on the river.

We had agreed to be at our pick up point just past Beynac-et-Cazenac at Les Milandes four hours after we started and I arrived at the tail end of the flotilla right in time to pile into the 4WD for the trip back to the starting point. I’m not sure how the kids found the energy to come home and swim in the very cold pool but I know we all slept very well that night.

The next day was cool and rainy again which didn’t worry us in the slightest because today was dedicated to eating lunch and packing. I had come across Alberge de Layotte when searching online for things to do in the Dordogne and I had read an article called something like “5 Things to Do in the Dordogne” were it featured and this was backed up by brilliant Tripadvisor reviews.

I had read that the chef had worked in the Paris restaurants before throwing it in to move back to the country where he has a lovely farm with fresh produce growing throughout the lovely garden. Rather than offering a menu to choose from his offering is based on fresh local ingredients in season. We entered through a lovely outdoor veranda area which would have been a delight on a sunny day.

We were ushered into a dining room with a huge fireplace at one end. It was like eating dinner with your very large family, there were twenty four of us in all, in a house that we felt represented a typically French farmhouse. The chef visited all the tables and welcomed his guests, he spoke enough English to joke with the children “see that photo of the old lady” (“yes”), “she is a witch and she lives upstairs, are you scared?”. Then he started laughing and I’m not sure he stopped laughing in the two hours we were there.

Our table was set with two plates and a bowl at each place setting and a magnum of red wine and another of water for you to help yourself. Our meal began with a huge jug of an aperitif a la Violette delivered to the table. The chef then brought basket of crisp French bread and heads of garlic for us to rub on the bread ourselves, pop into our soup bowl and then a terrine of the most delicious vegetable soup was delivered. It was full of delicious baby peas, zucchini, onions and carrots and when ladled over our garlic bread we knew we were in for a memorable meal. Next came a wild boar terrine, pickles,  a platter of jambon de pays and a flower salad.

Our third course consisted of roasted duck legs and delicious roasted potatoes. Once we looked like finishing the duck a dish of beef cheeks slow cooked in red wine was added to the table. Just when we thought we could not eat again for a month the chef arrived with a huge platter of cheese. He asked the kids how they had liked the meal so far after they had said they were enjoying it I added that they were pleased there was no snails on the menu today. He pretended to act offended and told the kids that they would love his snails in garlic and butter. Then he said "how about you come into the garden with me and help me find some frogs and ..." he then proceeded to mime pulling the legs off frogs accompanied by a disgusting sucking noise which had both him and the kids in peals of laughter  He then went from table to table and while my French is pretty basic I could guess from the laughter he was reliving the story with his other guests.

 
 

After the cheese we thought we were finished but no, we had one more course to go. A huge platter of cake was brought to the table, bearing delicious walnut cake and rhubarb cake. To accompany this we had five bowls of syrups to choose from to drizzle over our slices of cake, including green tomato, elderberry, pumpkin, pine needle and rose. Once we had gotten through this Rob had very strong coffee while I had a lovely verbena infusion and our choice liquor. Not only was the food fabulous but it was also incredibly cheep, costing under 85 euro for the four of us including all of the drinks. I can tell you that pack that afternoon was by no means a pleasure but every time we move on we regret the packing and every time we arrive we are glad we did, so we now except it as an necessary evil. And so now we move on from the Dordogne to pastures new, and hopefully I can bring them to you very soon.