We head
towards Brive La Gaillarde which is the gateway to the Dordogne. We have high
hopes for this lauded department of France and hope we will be able to appreciate
its real beauty without the hordes that descend during the summer months. Brive
is out first earmarked stop mainly because it’s a bigish town and will allow us
to replenish stocks. On arrival things don’t seem to bode well. The outskirts
aren’t appealing and we can’t find anywhere to park. We do a good few laps of
the concentric one way system they have in place and finally loose the plot and
decide to move on. As fortune would have it we stumble on a Leclerc on the way
out and go in to sort out the serious case of Mother Hubbard syndrome that we
are suffering from. (if you are aware of the song, not the bit where Rover came
over I hasten to add!).
Arrive at Montigniac,
having had a quick stop off at Terrason (awesome place, but we’re zooming).
We arrive
at Montigniac, really beautiful place and just around the corner from some
prehistoric caves we want to see. We park up in the aire and collapse with a
beer, we’re right on the river bank so we have a quick fishing attempt – pas de
poisson, so decide to go for a mooch into town instead. While attempting to put
our empty beer bottles in the onsite bin some bin protecting maniac, who looks
like (s)he might have crawled out of one of the aforementioned caves, has a go
about the correct disposal of bottles. It’s in the bin, there’s only one bin.
What more do you want (wo)man???! (S)he makes our minds up for us and we move
from the slightly isolated aire, with it’s one bin maniac, to the car park
adjacent.
Montigniac
is wonderful, slightly British even this early in the season, but completely
beautiful. We hit the market early doors in search of some local Honey, even
this early the streets are lively and the market is ace. We meet ‘actual prehistoric
wolf dog’ under one of the stalls and Moo is actually dwarfed, wow. After a
quick peek in the local church we head to the tourist office with MR LOUD I
CLEAN PAVEMENTS power washing everything in site like mad. Negotiations to buy
tickets to local caves are conducted at FULL VOLUME, every person in Montigniac
now knows where we are going. Clutching our 17 leaflets for local attractions –
we head back to Valerie, the leaflets give us a whole new route, but it’s first
stop the caves of Lascaux II..
P.S. no one
in Montigniac can drive with any skill whatsoever, you have been warned.
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