Part 4: The Dordogne

by Steve Wells

The Dordogne has the reputation of being one of those places where most Britons like to settle down. Some can't afford to travel too far and settle in Brittany or Normandy. Others, like Peter Mayle, head right down to Provence and the Luberon, For others, however, the heat is too great so close to the Mediterranean coast and want to settle down further north. The Dordogne is on about the same latitude as Bordeaux but further inland. It is a country of rolling hills and valleys and in some places is remarkably like the most picturesque parts of Britain. But the sun is out more often.

The south coast was essentially flat. What hills there were rose from the plain like afterthoughts, In the Dordogne there is no such thing as a flat plain. Whoever landscaped this part of France didn't have the word flat in their vocabulary.

So, the Dordogne is where you take those classic landscape photographs. You know, the ones with rolling hills and a picturesque ruined farm building. As with most of France, the wild flowers are superb, but go early in the year. Once the sun has set in they and the grass turn brown, burnt and boring to look at.

So, as a tourist and a photographer, what is there to do?

Well, as in all France there are a number of options. You could hang the camera over the back of a chair and open a bottle of wine. Alternatively you could drive out into the country, There are essentially two options. Go further east and the landscape gets more rugged; travel west and you reach the wine growing areas of Bergerac, Monbazillac and, beyond then, Bordeaux itself. Frankly, if you are going to a wine growing region there are not a lot of photographic options. You photograph the vines in the early morning mist subtly backlit, or you photograph the vines at midday with the sun beating down. If you are lucky you might find an interesting chateau, but this is rare. Most vines produce mediocre wine which is shipped to the local co-operative where it is used to make excellent wine, but 'Appellation Bordeaux Controlee’ is not quite the same as 'Appellation Margaux Controlee’.

I put that last bit in to appeal to the sophisticated wine devotees amongst you. Actually, the fact that for the price of a bottle of Chateau Margaux you could buy a hundred or more bottles of excellent, but unnamed wine, does seem to add a certain economic weight to the argument. After all when a bottle is empty it is gone. Once your bottle of Margaux is empty you are finished; when you have finished the first of a hundred, the evening is young and there will (probably) be some left for tomorrow.

Having slaked your thirst and spent a couple of days sleeping it off, you could try the east. Here you will find narrow valleys and towns hanging off cliffs; very picturesque so long as you politely wait your turn for the use of the 'standard tripod holes which mark the locations where all the successful pictures are taken. Your problem is to find a new way of taking the pictures. It comes down to finding new angles! Look for light raking across the old walls. If you go to the top of a tower, don't forget to point the camera straight down - you don't have to be looking through it when you press the shutter. This type of shot has the advantage that whenever you show your pictures there will always be someone who suffers from vertigo...

Finally, a couple of places to visit where your camera will be of no use whatsoever. Any country where there is water and steeply rolling hills will tend to have caves.

To the west of the Dordogne is Padirac Chasm. You descend, by lift, several hundred feet into a vertical cave and then travel further by punt (no, you don't have to do it yourself). Finally you get out to walk round the great underground domes and past the underwater lakes until, finally, you return to the punts. You have to pay to get in, you have to tip monsieur who is driving the punt, and the commercially available photos are not worth the money... but the cave itself is superb.

Should you happen to be of a more archaeological frame of mind, there is Lascaux. You must have heard the story of how a couple of boys in the early 1940s were out walking their dog, when it ran down a hole under a tree which had been blown down in a recent storm. They found themselves in a cave whose walls were covered in prehistoric paintings. After the war, the cave was opened to the public, but had to be closed again in the 1960s because the carbon-dioxide in visitor's breath was damaging the pictures. Now they let very few people enter the cave, and then for only a few hours at a time. All is not lost, however, for the visitor. Next to the real cave they have constructed a full size replica called 'Lascaux II'. You must buy timed tickets and can only go round in a guided party. If you are in the high season there are so many people, they don't want you even to go to the site if you haven’t got a ticket. You have to buy tickets from a shop in the middle of the town.

Mention of the storm which led to the discovery of Lascaux reminds me of the storm which we saw from our campsite. At its peak was dumping hailstones by the bucketful, and they were getting on for an inch across, I expected to find dents in the car roof, but we were lucky, Afterwards we discovered that another family had been trapped in the toilet block. The storm lasted less than an hour but they didn't know that at the time. They had been contemplating the possibility of spending the night in the toilet block (which was, at least, on high ground). As you will have gathered if you have been following this series, the weather was not the high spot of the holiday.

top of page