Grottes and gouffres (12th - 14th Aug)
by David HeathThe last week or so, we’ve been in the heart of the Dordogne, the land of Grottes and Gouffres (Chasms). The cycling and landscape has been stunning, with more hills than over on the coast. The weather has been pretty good too, not too hot, apart from Weds 15th, when we had a scorching climb to Rocamadour.
On Sunday 12th we ‘took it easy’, planning to do a bit of sight seeing and not too much cycling, leaving our gear in the campsite at St Alvere. We visited the Gouffre de Proymeyssac, which has stunning calcite stalactites and so on. There’s also triangular calcite crystals formed in a pool of strong calcite solution, which are apparently very rare. Also enormous stalactites weighing hundreds of tonnes. After cycling into Eyzies and back to our campsite we had clocked up 64km, so in the end not so restful as we had hoped.
On Monday 13th, we packed up and headed off early to Eyzies to visit the Grotte de Font de Gaume. This popular grotte claims to be the only cave in the world where tourists can see original 15000 year old cave paintings. It gets booked up months in advance but they hold back some tickets for day visitors. So we arrived there at 08h30 and there were already 15 people waiting. We sat and waited and ate our breakfast of porridge with prunes and peanuts. We managed to get tickets for the 12h30 visit. Having a few hours to kill, we decided to go update our blog, and found a nice hotel with quite cheap internet access.
The tour of the grotte was very interesting, it’s quite amazing to realise that these paintings were done more than 10,000 years ago, in difficult conditions .. grease lamps and basic painting tools. The people who did them must have been very motivated, but today we can only guess at why they felt urged to express themselves in this paint. Was it a religious belief? A desire to leave a record of their history?
After the Grotte we went and had a typically hearty lunch by the river in Eyzies, before heading off for what we thought would be a relatively easy 20km ride to Sarlat. Boy were we wrong, most of the way (D48, D35, D25) was uphill, and it was probably the toughest ride we’ve done since the Jura. We arrived exhausted in the campsite in Sarlat (Les Acacias at La Caneda).
Total distance: 51.8km
Ride time: 3h03
Avg speed: 16.9 km/h
Max speed: 53.7 km/h
On Tuesday 14th, we decided again to cut ourselves some slack, and leave our kit at the campsite in Sarlat, to follow the circular ride suggested in the Lonely Planet cycle guide. This would take us through several of the ‘most beautiful villages’ in France, and also via the impressive Chateau at Castelnaud. We set off at 9am and arrived at Domme around 10.30. We met a retired German couple at the bottom of the climb up to Domme who were also doing a cycling tour. The man was riding a very slick and comfortable looking recumbent (photo to follow). The climb up to Domme was actually not too bad, and well worth the effort, with stunning views over the Dordogne valley (photos to follow). We sat in the café by the view point and ate our porrige with a nice cup of coffee. Bliss!
After a speedy descent descent from Domme we headed over to Castelnaud, with some nice flat riding along the valley floor. Castelnaud was really stunning and we had a great guided tour in English (from a very friendly dutch guide). Castelnaud was at the centre of disputes between the French and English for hundreds of years and changed hands six or seven times during the hundred years war. The fortifications were revised many times with the progressive development of catapults and in particular the Trebuchet, capable of throwing a 100kg rock with precision over 100m.
After the guided tour, we had a quick look around the (excellently presented) museum, but didn’t really have the energy to do it justice, and headed back to the Campsite for dinner.
Total distance: 48.3km
Ride time: 2h42
Avg speed: 17.9 km/h
Max speed: 48.8 km/h
After dinner, we went into Sarlat to wonder round. Our guidebook had recommended an evening stroll to appreciate the town ‘entirely illuminated with gas lamps’. The town was really thronging with people, and we weren’t dissapointed with the pretty architecture - cobbled lanes, old stone houses, and yes gas lamps illuminating the streets. The best things were the street performers. A baloon artist had a cround of several hundred enthralled as he told a fairy tale about a princess betrothed to the horrible pirate. He used balloons to create wonderful props and costumes for child volunteers who acted out the parts (with his enthusiastic and skillful direction). After a delicious ice cream, we couldn’t really manage to take in any more of the sights, and headed back to the campsite to bed.