A New Adventure in France

We had always planned to rent a house as part of our trip, assuming that we probably wouldn’t want to camp for the whole time and we’d even thought of doing that in the busy summer months. In fact, in this strange year, campsites have been unusually quiet. Even during the 5-6 weeks of the peak French holiday season it was all bearable and great to see more life. A number of campsites we’ve stayed at had initially planned to close later in the season than usual, staying open into October, to make up for the later opening after lockdown at the start of the season. But quarantine has killed that off with Brits and other European nations not taking late autumn breaks. So the last campsite we stayed in at Limeuil decided to shut up shop early and we decided a while ago to rent a house for the last month of our stay.

During our last week at the campsite we watched as fellow occupants departed each day until we were the last campervan on site on the day they closed. (There were a couple of other people staying in mobile homes on site until the end.) On the last day when we went to shower after packing up, we found the shower blocks in darkness – they’d turned off the lights because they thought we had already left! So we actually camped for 90 days straight and can honestly say we’ve really enjoyed it and have been remarkably comfortable – due in no small part to very good weather on all but a handful of days.

So we are now installed in a lovely house in a tiny hamlet in the southeast corner of the Dordogne (east of Sarlat-la-Canéda) close to the borders of both the Lot and Corrèze departments. The house is a ‘sous-sol’ style house with the accommodation on the first floor and a large basement area on the ground floor, perfect to keep the motorbike dry and warm and to unload and store all of our camping paraphernalia. The house is set back from the road and surrounded by farmland on three sides and views over the farmland from all rooms. There are a few farmhouses in the hamlet and the only noise coming from birds, a very occasional car or farming equipment, biplanes and the inevitable French barking dog!

On our first day we walked to the nearest small village to explore and get our bearings. The Sarlat area was a centre of resistance activity during the Second World War and there is a plaque on the farmhouse on the opposite side of the road to us noting that it provided shelter for allied personnel. It was a lovely sunny afternoon with a breeze, so perfect for drying out and cleaning up our camping gear which was packed away damp due to early morning dew and overnight rain. A very productive afternoon spent cleaning, drying and packing away ready for next use.

There are a number of signposted walks in the area and we explored the facilities of another nearby village, Proissans, buying lunch provisions before we headed off on a long circular walk through pastures, woods of sweet chestnut trees (some gathered to try later) and walnut tree orchards with their crops getting closer to harvesting. We’re looking forward to more exploring from this base over the coming weeks.