It’s a misty morning in Normandy I have travelled across France again to visit Perigord and returned. Perigord is half-way down on the left hand side and is a favourite of the English on holiday. It has the qualities of being very pretty, has lots of nice little villages that have been perfectly preserved, has wonderful food (foie gras and truffles) and is just far enough away from England that is has some decent weather.
I walked for 4 days through this beautiful landscape, only to encounter the English tourists whenever I set foot in a village or town.
My two friends from Paris, Thomas and Yesim came with me for this walk, and we passed the time be walking for a short time then drinking coffee and eating ice cream for a long time. Thomas is German and Yesim is Turkish, but they live in Paris and I don’t think they want to leave. They have an apartment off the Rue Mouffetard which is right in the middle of the Left Bank and I often stay there when I am passing through Paris.
Perigord was beautiful, perfect for anyone who likes to walk but isn’t so keen on climbing up a mountains. There are no mountains in Perigord, just lots of rolling hills dotted with little villages and country houses owned by the English. In fact it’s become famous as the most popular place for English to buy houses in France. Thomas and Yesim and I would arrive by lunchtime in the next village, and settle in the cafe with the best view. It was funny seeing the English tourists; all white and wrinkly going timidly into restaurants and trying to ask for the menu in awfulFrench. The Dutch were so perfect at French (and looking French) that you can only tell they’re Dutch from the license plates on their cars. The few Americans I saw seemed to really relish being in France and kept speaking their few words of French to each other as though it was a made up language like Elvish or Klingon. “Bonjour madame” the husband would say to his wife. “Bonjoor monsoor” (really bonjour monsieur) she would reply.
The Australians simply couldn’t be bothered and just spoke English loudly. The French waiters didn’t seem to mind either way as the menus were all in English anyway.
In some ways, the small villages are too pretty. In one, Domme, which is perched splendidly on top of a hill with a commanding view over the Dordogne river valley, every house has been restored and the place is full of tourists in the afternoon, just at the point when it’s so hot you want to retreat to the coolness of your hotel room. All the shops were either selling foie gras (Goose liver) or ‘art’. Thomas Yesim and I had the urge to eat pizza one evening and escaped down the hill to the adjacent village of Cenac. It was 20 minutes walk but there were no tourists. It was a working-class French village with a bar and a pizza van. Two women baked and sold pizzas out of this Renault van along with beer and orangina. It was a real pleasure to devour two pizzas sitting in the car park without a waiter in sight.
The highlight of the trip was definitely the lovely countryside. It’s very green and in the spring after the rains before the heat of the summer the colours are so vivid. The earthy track against the emerald green of the trees and the azure blue of the sky, with a hundred birds singing in the trees. Very bucolic.
Today I am off to Greece. I’ll be back in France on the 14th of May, with hopefully some photos of the Pindos Mountains.