Dordogne

During these holidays, we visited the Dordogne, where we stayed with friends for 4 nights. We drove two and a half hours to get to the village of Roquefort, where we had a tour of the "Papillon" Roquefort cheese cellars. We first watched a movie on how Roquefort cheese was originally made, then we went on a tour of the caves. Roquefort cheese is made by "salting" the sheep's milk with penicillin, causing the cheese to develop green/blue mold. The cheese is matured in the caves, which stay at 10degC all year round, for a period of 90 to 260 days. There are only 7 manufactures who can call their cheese "Roquefort", and they fall within a zone of 2 km long and 300 meters wide within the village boundaries. When we finished the tour, we got to taste all the different Roquefort cheeses. We bought the best cheese and drove to the nearest park to eat it with some bread and butter.

We kept driving for half an hour until we reached the biggest bridge in France, The Millau Bridge! We drove across the bridge before stopping at a view point, and information centre. The bridge is 2460 meters long and the tallest column is 245m high.

That afternoon we arrived at the house of friends where we were staying, in the town of Thenon, in the Dordogne Valley.

The next morning we left for the markets at Sarlat. They were quite big and we saw a man, he had a little snake toy twirling around his hands so it looked like magic. They looked so cool so Sean and I bought one each. We felt them but they had nothing in them at all! There is a secret to how they work, maybe I will show you one day!! After the markets we drove to the Dordogne river where we had a boat ride that passed five chateaux, all within 1km of each other.

The next day we went to La Roque de St Christophe. La Roque de St Christophe is a cliff face 1km long and 80 meters high. It is made up of 5 terraces, which were first hollowed out 60 million years ago. The cliff was first a shelter for hunters 55 000 years ago and it was continually inhabited until the sight was destroyed during the Wars of Religion in the late 1500s. It had a couple of examples of how the cave men lived. The site was mostly occupied in the middle ages. We saw a demonstration where there was a big wheel, like in a hamsters cage, a man hopped into the wheel and walked. This machine was used as a winch to hoist up and down loads of food, water and other supplies.

That afternoon we went to the Gardens of Marqueyssac. The owners have hand-shaped the 150 000 box trees into lots of imaginative shapes. There was even a kids' maze that Sean and I raced through. I won. A part of the garden is even used for rock climbing.

We went to the Gouffre de Padirac. The Gouffre de Padirac is a giant cave where there are lots of stalagmites and stalactites. We walked through the cave and got into a boat and rode 1 kilometre into the cave. From there, we had a tour guide through the rest of the cave. We had to climb 465 big steps. The cave system has been mapped for 19 kilometres more into the cave, and at 9km remains of cave men, mammoth and cave bears were discovered. My favourite formations were the ones that looked like there was a stack of pancakes with maple syrup on top!! We also saw a 60 meter column. A column is when a stalagmite and a stalactite meet, so then they become a column. When we had the boat ride back the man who was paddling would always rock the boat scaring us all as we thoughrt we were going to tip out. It was one of the most amazing caves I have ever seen.

I had lots of fun in the Dordogne!