Surrounded by History

Last Tuesday we left the beautiful lake-side campsite of Lous Suais, and headed back through the porcelain city of Limoges. If you take the D941 and head north-west you will come across one of the best kept secrets from WWII, the decimated town of Oradour-sur-Glane. Over 600 men, women and children were shot or burnt to death by SS troops in a reprisal attack on 10th June 1944, and the remains of the town have been preserved exactly as it was found, and maintained as a national monument to the memory of the dead. Thousands of visitors every year come to pay their respects and learn more about how and why this beautiful French town was singled out for such an atrocity. We began by visiting the exhibition which maps out the events of the war, particularly in relation to the part France played, and then you are guided through a tunnel into the town itself. It was a remarkable and sobering experience to wander through the streets, quietly and respectfully along with other tourists, going inside the church where over 400 women and children were burned as the SS soldiers locked them in and threw hand grenades into the chancel in an abortive attempt to bring down the roof. The various shops and houses are marked with exactly what they used to be; the dentist, the patisserie, the garage, the hotel, the girl’s school etc. Burnt out remains of cars, sewing machines, cash registers, bread ovens, all remain as they were when the outside world discovered the scene days after the attack. Our visit was a very special moment in our journey.

From there we drove on to find our France Passion night stop at Ferme Auberge de Bellevue in the tiny and exquisite village of Chateau de Lastours, just south of Limoges. As we drove up the narrow steep lane to this goose farm with restaurant, we could see across the valley into the village and were amazed to see a ruined castle next to a wooden church with a tall bent steeple! On exploring on foot we found that the village is on the “Route Richard Coeur de Lion”, and that the King stayed at this castle when travelling from England to the Holy Land. As Victor was reading ‘Millennium’ by Tom Holland, an incredible book detailing the events of the first 1000 years since Christ, culminating with the Crusades, this seemed highly appropriate. Imagine our delight to discover an advert telling us that there was to be a show at the castle that very night starting at 10pm, which would give the history of the castle and an insight into the life of a soldier at the time of Richard.

Before that we enjoyed a most spectacular meal at the Auberge, on Madame’s terrace, overlooking the village and the castle (see photo). As it was a goose farm, they specialise in patés and fois gras. Fois gras, in case you have not come across it, and with apologies to vegetarians, is the paté made from goose liver, after the goose has been force fed with maize to engorge his liver and make it particularly tender and tasty. And it does! It was! I can honestly say that the hot starter of goose liver was one of the most delicious plates of food I have ever had! All helped along with local red wine of course. Madame offered us a lift into the village to attend the light show at the castle, and although it was all in French and we understood very little, it was very entertaining and extremely atmospheric, as a group of actors dressed as Knights with lit torches, gave a presentation about the castle, including singing traditional French songs, mock fighting with replica weapons, and an initiation ceremony of a new member of their order. It was nearly one o’clock when we got back to the van that night.

Wednesday was the city of Perigeux and a nightstop at another goose and pig farm, and on Thursday we enjoyed a drive down the length of the Vérzère Valley from Montignac, where they were holding a local festival and the main street was festooned with paper flowers, to Les Eyzies, a little town literally carved out of the rock. The route is the centre of the prehistoric troglodyte area where people over centuries have made their homes in the massive rock formations over the river. We were now in the Dordogne, one of the more wealthy areas of France, full of traditional yellow-stone villages and chateaux. This area is favoured by the British and thousands have sold up and moved out here.

After three days of exploration we were ready to find out next campsite, a small site in the forest just south-east of Sarlat, the capital of the Dordogne. We took a couple of hours to discover Sarlat on our way down and we found a bustling medieval town, with many shops and restaurants, with the accent heavily on tourism. We loved it! So, since Thursday evening we have been at this site, Le Grandes Chenes (the large oaks), a French run family site boasting ‘designer buildings’, reminding us of the sets in The Flintstones, with bulbous cement walls and porthole windows! Sadly, the weather has not been good since last Wednesday morning, and the sun is still struggling to shine. We move on tomorrow morning and the plan is to explore more of the Dordogne for a couple of days before the next campsite. We really do need sunshine by next Wednesday!