Jardins du Sarlat
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44°53’40.1964″N, 1°13’5.0016″E
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Beynac-et-Cazenac
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44°50’24.3060″N, 1°8’25.9584″E
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Castelnaud-la-Chappelle
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44°48’47.2788″N, 1°9’10.6632″E
Today, to say the least, was a very interesting day.
We started out by driving about 20 minutes from Sarlat to visit Beynac-et-Cazenac. This village is built on a hillside beside the Dordogne River. There is an impressive chateau high up on the hilltop.
Photo above – Chateau de Beynac, built 9 centuries ago.
The chateau overlooks the river & the valley below. Part of the movie “Chocolat” was filmed there in year 2000 & another movie “The Last Duel”, directed by Ridley Scott, was filmed there in 2021.
Photo above – the Dordogne River below the chateau.
People can charter boats on this river, similar to our adventure a few days ago on the Charente. Looks very peaceful & inviting. I’ll bookmark this info in consideration of our plans for next year. Another interesting fact about this river – it was a border between France & England during the 100 Year’s War.
Photo above – the streets in this village were very steep. Thankfully several of them didn’t allow cars. We walked around the village for awhile admiring the architecture & looking in the shop windows. The walk up to the chateau was pretty far so we decided to take a pass & move on to our next destination.
Next, we were going to visit Chateau des Milandes, former home of Josephine Baker, a famous entertainer in France & member of the French Resistance during WWII. Unfortunately, we never made it there.
We stopped in Castelnaud-la-Chappelle for a bit & when we started to drive away we had a flat tire. Fortunately, there was a safe place to pull off. When we got parked I checked the trunk for a spare tire but there was none. I called Avis, explained what happened, told them where we were & asked for assistance. They said they would send a repair vehicle to us right away.
Photo above – yep, it’s flat – at least on the bottom!
The repair vehicle driver called me about an hour later & asked where we were. He didn’t speak English so it was a challenge communicating but we finally figured out that Avis had sent him to another town! We gave him a new set of directions along with our GPS coordinates & he finally found us.
Photo above – Opie gets a piggyback ride to Sarlat.
The truck driver told us he could not repair the tire at this location so he loaded it on the truck. We rode in the tow truck with the driver down a steep & very curvy road to the tire repair shop in Sarlat.
I think our driver was aspiring to take Daniel Ricardo’s place on the Red Bull F1 team. He was in a hurry to get to Sarlat! It was an exciting ride, to say the least. Cath was less than thrilled & was glad that our wills were up to date.
All said & done, nobody got hurt & no other damage to the car except for a new tire & our bank account being €164.00 lighter.
This was about a 5 hour event so that pretty much ended our sightseeing for the day.
Photo above – back in the main square in Sarlat to find a restaurant for dinner.
After resting for a while at our b&b we walked back to the historic district, found a nice restaurant, ordered a bottle of wine & reflected on the events of the day.
Tomorrow should be better – fingers crossed!
Cheers!