Beynac, Domme, Cahors

The Blackberry crashed overnight again, but this time I woke up before it went off and restarted it. Apparently Friday is delivery day in the square. The noise and activity helped to wake us up.

We got up and went out for some coffee... no full breakfast this time. We stopped in the market hall to buy some nuts and sausage (we got a sausage with walnuts... I'd bought something similar in Paris and it was delicious). We considered buying some walnut oil, and the man at that counter gave us tastes of three liqueurs (unprompted – liqueur at 10am is not something I usually request). The first was walnut (noix), which is a local specialty. It was pretty good, and tasted remarkably fruity rather than nutty. The second was horse-chestnut (châtaigne), which was nice, and much nuttier in taste. The third, he gave us a tiny taste, and promised we wouldn't find anything like it anywhere else. "I promise you you have never had this before. You will only get it from me!" He held the bottle so the label was hidden, but I guessed what it was anyway: truffle. It was... interesting. One of those things that's just too odd to be enjoyable. I'd like to think that in the right circumstances, it would be fabulous, but actually I just think it was kind of gross.

On the way out of the market I stopped and bought a chausson aux pommes to round out my breakfast. We checked out of the hotel, loaded up the car, and hit the road. The plan was to meander around the Dordogne valley, and stop along the way at Domme, Castelnaud, and Beynac.

The first stop was Beynac, which has flat-bottomed boat tours of the Dordogne. The Dordogne is one of Europe cleanest rivers, and was the main transportation link for centuries. However, parts of it are only navigable during the high water times of spring and fall, and even during those times boat had to be pulled upstream by people or oxen, so it was easily replaced by trains in the early 20th century. It was also the front between France and England (that is, English Aquitaine) during the 100 years' war. It has been both French and English, as have many castles and towns along the Dordogne.

The river tour was nice and informative. We looked at several castles from the water, and heard about the history of the area. It was also nice to be out on the water in the sun (though we did get sunburned).

The town of Beynac sits along the river and climbs up a steep hill, which turns into a rocky cliff, on top of which is the castle and upper village. It has hardly any stairs, mostly just steep roads – it was quite a workout, possibly harder than yesterday at Rocamadour, or perhaps my legs are just tired. The town is extremely picturesque, and several movies have been filmed there, including Chocolat. It also has all its road and square names written in Occitane instead of French ("Vielh Lavador de la Balma"; "Porta Veuva"), but carved into stone and not colored, so it's not so easily read.

Before exploring, we had decided to have dinner at a recommended restaurant, La Petite Tonelle. An excellent choice! So very good. (Also we did not confine ourselves to menus, but ordered what we wanted off the carte.) I started with a salade aux asperges au magret seché (a bed of baby lettuce and curly endive, lightly dressed; grilled green asparagus on top; at the ends, 6 slices of dried duck breast – the "duck prosciutto" I had the other day – accompanied by a sauce of balsamic vinegar or cassis or something like that, and pink peppercorns. All the flavors conspired together toward ultimate deliciousness.) This was followed by magret de canard with cherries (excellent), and a timbale of spinach, mint, and other flavors (delicious), and some very nice pommes sarladaises. Eric started with oysters (6 creuses with mimolette and lemon), and followed that with cuisse de canard confit (excellent – much better than last night, and comparable to the night before). We had a nice local rosé (from Domme) to go with it.

Then we explored the town, which meant basically climbing up and up and up till we got to the castle. The castle is privately owned and kept up, and so visits are not free. The owner lives in the gate keep, above the gate, and maintains the main part of the castle as a museum piece. It's not fully restored yet, but a lot of it is in great condition. Some rooms are furnished and lit with oil lamps, others are still empty. (We saw two castle privies – the sort I'd read about but never seen: a room hanging off the edge of the castle with a seat with a hole in it perched over the void. We did not use the, of course.) Being kept up so nicely in its original medieval state makes this castle a great movie set, and Luc Besson's 1999 movie Jeanne d'Arc was filmed there.

By the time we left town, we felt it was a bit late to see everything we'd planned, so we skipped Castelnaud (on the grounds that it was not altogether different from what we'd just been doing). We took a meandering route to Domme, where we spent an hour. Domme is the first and only place (so far) that I've seen with actual bilingual government signs – and even at that, there was only one: the sign on entry to the town was labeled "Domme" and below it a smaller matching sign read "Doma". Domme is perched high atop a rocky promontory over the Dordogne. (This is what the region is like – rocky promontories everywhere. It's why we came.) Unlike Rocamadour and Beynac, though, it is only on top of the hill, which makes it easier to walk around. The views over the valley are really spectacular. There's a little terrace-park where you can go and take in the view.

We also bought a variety of canned local specialties, including walnut oil, rillettes, terrines; honestly I don't remember it all. We didn't get duck confit, though we do plan to before coming home. (These will make nice summer meals.) The man at the store offered us a taste of his special liqueur, prune and walnut. It was really nice; much better than the ones from this morning. He said he made it himself, so that was nice – so many of these little food specialty stores are part of large companies, or are merely resellers. We didn't buy any, though, partly because we rarely drink liqueurs, and partly because it's harder to bring back safely now that you can't bring liquids on airplanes.

(A nice side note: he complimented us on our French. Actually, he asked what region we were from, and was surprised to hear we were American. I thought, maybe my accent is pretty good – my comprehension could be better, and I have to ask people to repeat things, but perhaps the overall effect is that I speak fluently but am slightly deaf. This idea amuses me.)

Onward to Cahors for the night! Cahors has some tourism, but is mostly a local administrative town. It has a medieval core which is less well preserved and kept up. It's more urban, with graffiti and garbage, and some modern buildings mixed in with the old. It's less special and extraordinary than a perfectly preserved town like Sarlat or Beynac, where cables for electricity and television are laid under the roads so no one has to see modern life marring the view. But at the same time, it feels real, and it's nice not to be surrounded by tourists, and to have people selling you things constantly.

We checked into our hotel (clean and serviceable, if decoratively uninspired), wandered a bit, and looked at the town. For dinner we went to a restaurant called Le Rendez-Vous, also recommended by Michelin. It's known for "modern food", they said, and the food was excellent. We started with a couple of amuse-bouche, little round buttery pastries, one with toasted cheese and the other with what seemed like olive and anchovy. I had local specialties somewhat reinterpreted: foie gras with fig compote; magret de canard with honey sauce and cous cous; a Cabécou with a salad dressed with walnut oil. (I'm eating duck as though I might never get the chance again... and I must say I'm enjoying it.) These dishes were all good, though the duck was not very ducky – it was delicious, but a little like eating beef, which was odd. Eric started with a mushroom terrine flavored with truffles (a vegetarian option, apparently, with various mushrooms plus truffles in an eggy base), and then had medaillon de veau, sauce au citron, avec sa ris de veau panaché (also delicious – the ris de veau, sweetbreads, were a little round thing breaded and fried, very much like a milanesa), and finished with a tiramisu aux fraises (a somewhat deconstructed tiramisu with strawberry compote on the bottom – it was good, Eric reports). To drink we had a lovely local wine (Cahors) produced biodynamically, called Château Vent d'Autan (2002). Afterward they served us some tasty little sweets: something she called a "congolaise," which was a little light sweet ball made with toasted coconut; a clafoutis aux raisins; and a meringue au chocolat. All were lovely.

And then we went back to the hotel for sleep.

Labels: france, journal

posted by Tony at 11:23 PM