Bad Weather Vs Fultime Motorhome Life: Dordogne, FRANCE

Bad Weather Vs Fultime Motorhome Life: Dordogne, FRANCE

Yeah could be. Hoods up. Let’s go and see the rest of this village. Good morning. Good morning. We’re  in the… Where are we..? We’re currently   in the Dordogne region of France. Yes. Which  I believe just means, we’re near the river  

Of the Dordogne. Yes. Yeah, but the plan today is  head up there somewhere. Apparently there’s   a very pretty town with some nice bits and  a cave and all kinds of stuff we like…  Up there. Mhm Should we go..? Yeah. It’s going to  take us half an hour to walk there.

So you may have noticed already we’re a  little bit wrapped up this morning. Hmm. It’s really   cold. It’s currently 4° and that’s a beautiful  house. Wow. Look at that door. I love that door.   It’s got like ribbons of metal up here. It’s  fabulous. This looks so different to what we  

Got used to in Spain doesn’t it..? Yeah, but it’s  beautiful and from what we gather and we might   be wrong on what we’re saying here, this little  village at the bottom here, is not what people  

Come to this region to see. So apparently this one  is for sale “à vendre” that’s got to be “for sale” Yep.   but I mean it’s got so much potential look at it. It’s awesome. It clearly needs a lot of money  

Spent on it. I mean the fact that this section  here, hasn’t even got a roof. No. Somebody started   doing some of it, because it’s got a concrete  lintle now. Oh yeah. But I mean you can see  

Where a door used to be. Yeah. But that could be so  fabulous. Yeah. I don’t get the two different widths   of bricks did you see that..? Yeah we noticed this  a second ago. Just here for some reason, again don’t  

Understand why, look, here for example this brick  is cut or the stone is cut to be shaped like that.   And the one beneath it and it goes all the way  up and kind of around the top in a random shape.  

I don’t get it. I don’t but I really like it. I do  really like it. I’m in love. What with the little house on the corner..? Yeah. I mean look at its little, little, skinny pointy roof that’s kind of higgledy that way

Yeah you can see that. And the skinniest chimney. It is cool. and I love the fact the door’s right on the end here, as well. It’s just awesome. Because I presume this  is, all the way down there is one house.  

It might not be. A certain way anyway. There actually seems to be various doors dotted down there. I don’t know That’s just us coming out of  the “Not So picturesque” Village apparently.   Where we’re actually heading  to now, is what we believe everyone comes  

To see here, which is this one on the  hill. The only thing now darling… What’s that..? We got to walk up there. I know. We’ve got to head up this road. I’m knackered already. At least that bit doesn’t look as steep as what  we’ve walked up already. No. To be fair this looks…

Am I speaking too soon again..? Am I  tempting fate again..? Oh possibly. But it looks a lot flatter. This bit up to the left is nice.  Well, we kind of made it. Yeah.

On first impressions, I have to say looks really cool.  Fairly promising. Yeah. We’re just going to go and   have a wander. You think there’s a castle type  thing up here, isn’t there..? There’s meant to be   a castle. Obviously we’ve got walls all  the way around. I would say the Castle is  

Kind of that end. Yeah, it looks like some  ruins over on the edge there, don’t there..?   A couple of Towery things. Several towers. We need to go see what they are and a very pretty Village.  

I’ve got a bit of a problem. What’s that..? My glasses are steaming up. Thank you, that’s very helpful my love. Yep. Okay. Okay, Yeah this is um very very pretty. It’s just beautiful, oh Pizzeria.  Awesome. Actually that’s a really valid point.  

Is it me..? And somebody can answer me this, happily. Is it me..? Or do the French love pizzas..?    Everywhere we go, there’s pizzerias and pizza vending machines. Yeah, that was fairly special wasn’t it..? Doing the laundry with a pizza machine right next door to it.. Pizza vending machine beside it

And we’ve not just seen one by the way. It’s not a rarity we’ve seen several Pizza vending machines, kind of on the side of the road, in Supermarket parking lots, car parks and they dispense in 4 minutes. Yeah. 30 seconds  

If you want a cold pizza and 4 minutes if you  want it hot. The French on face value, do seem,   sorry French, obsessed with pizzas. I’m presuming this is the main Square then. It’s enormous. Yeah   I didn’t honestly expect, from what we’ve  seen so far, to find a very large square.  

Very large car park. There’s a bar over there.  There is indeed. A medieval bar. There is indeed.   They might sell you a drink. They may sell me  a drink. You are correct. Brasserie bar does have an  

Open door. It does. Doesn’t seem to be much inside. No. I don’t think that’s actually, I mean that’s   very medieval, if that is open. Very medieval.  Spit and sawdust. Yeah and clamps. Oh no that’s   that’s definitely not open. No that is uh, oh  beautiful, but not open. Definitely shut.

Well this is semi-promising. There’s lights. There’s a board, are we going in..? It’s gone 12. That was um very expensive, but very lovely.  I’ve got to say. Very different. Yeah Bulgar wheat crepes.   With ham and cheese and the whole, eggs. Yeah the  whole restaurant basically just sells these Bulgar  

Wheat crepes with various sweet or savory toppings.  Things wrapped in them.    This is “Entrée” am I saying that right..? Yep. De la Grotto. So that’s the entry to the Cave. Yeah, which is from what   

We gather from the map, quite big looks like it. Yeah. Impressive building. Very. Like the wood stuff on there. Me too and the Christmas decorations. Yeah and oh look at that thing there. With the tower attached at the  

Side to it. Here, this thing with the tower there. That’s  unusual. Lovely. There’s your pizzeria. Oh lovely, wait, what..? We just had crepes, what am I talking  about..? I love you. Um I’ve thrown myself now. I know,

Because you’ve just thought about pizzas. Yeah. Bless. What was I going to say..? I don’t know you were talking about the unusual building with the turret. Yeah, Pizza.   Still can’t remember what I was going to say, but we are going to…

Walk around there, but look at that tree. Yeah, hold on let me we just show you. We’re going to walk   around there, because, we’re going to walk around there. You mean this tree, oh my word. Is that an actual tree..? I would imagine it’s a vine.

Look at it, the way they’ve twisted it around stuff. I know but look at the moss and stuff growing on it. It’s just gorgeous. Gorgeous building though again.  Very much so. Look at the lovely door. Yeah that’s  

Really nice. Lovely library, look at that. Coat of arms  there. They sell comics and manga. Wow.   That’s a bit unusual. Another bar, another restaurant. Oh there’s the Bistro de Ramparts, where we were headed in   the first place. So that’s where we were going in  the first place. Yeah.

I’m going to just check. Am I going to be absolutely gutted..? Yeah probably. I see the price of stuff. It’s all cocktails darling. That looks like drinks.  Oh no, here’s here’s the actual menu. Oh bubbie, they do an English breakfast.  What..? Sausage, bacon, beans… For € 12  

Eggs. Pain de mi. I don’t know what that  is but, oh… So for €12 we could have had a   full English breakfast. Yep and we’ve just  paid €15 for a crepe with cheese. Yep.   Right, stop complaining. Yeah, stop whinging.. And  get prepared to see an amazing view.   

Looks like a really good view, doesn’t it..? I do  wonder if we’re the right side, there’s   the river, which means, down there…  The camper is down there somewhere. Wow, yeah. This is a different gate isn’t it..? To the one we came  through. Yep. Okay this was a proper building at one  

Point. Look because it’s got like a double gable end thing. Two Gables no roof. It is quite a spectacular way   of entering your hometown isn’t it..? Isn’t it  just..? This will be the one with the two rounded  

Bits I think. There’s one rounded bit and there’s  the other and there’s another rounded bit. Oh yeah   That’s spectacular. Isn’t it gorgeous..? What  an entrance. It would be lovely when the lights are on.   Yeah. Imagine it being dark and kind of, darkness  looming around, with the two little curtains of  

Lights. Yeah Lovely. That would be awesome. I’ve got to say, the locals don’t seem very happy. Well it depends whether they’re actually locals in the cars driving around, but the people in the cars driving around don’t look very happy. Yeah 

They seem to be driving around quite quickly and they seem to know the road system very well, so I’m presuming they’re locals. But they don’t seem very happy. How could you not be happy living  somewhere as beautiful as this..? It is stunning and I imagine the problem is US tourists.

You know wandering around here but at the end of the day, this is what..? The first third, first half of December..? And this is still really busy in there. So this is clearly touristy all year round and yeah going to sound a bit controversial here. Oh no..!

But if you don’t like living in somewhere that’s got  tourism all year round, move.   Now this… And the day is complete. What’s that..? Well that we came to a place like this and we still managed to

Find a narrow little alleyway with stuning houses. Yeah that’s so cute. Mmm To be fair, this whole side of   the village/town is really cute. So many lovely little  features. Apart from the hospital, I haven’t   actually seen a modernized building at all. No  not at all. All the ones that have been um restored  

Like this, that have been rest restored but keeping  the essence of the medieval. Original building .   Yeah there’s a lot of restoration work been done  here. Stunning. A lot of these houses you can see  

Like this one here. Clearly had a lot of money a  lot of time, lot of love put into it. Which is   great to see and the other thing as well we’ve  noticed is, all around the outskirts of the 

Village, the town, they seem to be, I don’t know if  it’s the town hall, I don’t know it works here but   there seems to be a company or somebody restoring  a lot of the walls. A lot of the roadways. Yeah    Some serious money going into this place.

Right we’ve got to go up here. We’ve got to go up this alley. Yes we have. This is awesome. Mmm. It’s like a little shopping street. Yeah. They’ve got like shops and   that all kind of old dotted along. Alison spotted the  hammock shop. Of course. You’re desperate for us to  

Have a hammock in the motorhome somewhere. I am desperate for us to have a hammock. Well even if we just tie it from tree to tree and just move it each time we move, but the the street itself is completely different. Yeah There’s none  

Of the finger brick edges, anywhere else. No. It  is completely different to it. Is this the… I can’t I think what you call it. You said it in French. No I can’t remember what they call it here. Carrer Mayor in Spanish the Main Street

Main Street. Could be. Right we made it  back to the square, with the entrance to the cave.   There’s a bit of a queue already. There is. I assume we go in here and pay. I think we’ve got to go into here and get a ticket because it’s not free.

So we’ve just come out of the caves. We weren’t really permitted to take a lot of video in there And it did cost us €9 a person and I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about it. Because at the end of the day it was very  beautiful but we’ve paid substantially less for  

A lot more. In Spain, yes. Yeah and it was guided.  It was guided. Which I’m not a big fan of because   you kind of end up, like we did with a lot of it just  kind of going through and missing a lot.

When the guide stopped to talk, every body  around the area stopped, so we couldn’t really   see what she was talking about, because we were  still further back in the tunnel to get through and then when we moved they moved from  one location to another and it was just kind of  

Whizz through and you got no chance to see. Yeah,  so if you’re at the back it’s not really worth it AND €3 for a can of Fuze tea. Iced tea, Nestea, Lipton that we normally drink. That’s really excessive, but..  

We have found France in comparison to be very,  very expensive. Yeah. Right negativity over. Yeah. Shall we now go and find this Castle thing which I think is.. That way. In this direction over here..? I think so, yeah. Well there’s the mill. Yep. So that must be  the castle.  

Didn’t expect that either. Mill, obvious. That can’t be it. What just that round building..? I don’t know.  It said on the description, mill first then Castle.   I mean it’s cool. It’s really cool. I would love  that as a house. Yeah. Actually that would be a  

Phenomenal house. Wouldn’t it..? 360º Nah, there’s got to be more than that. Don’t know. So apparently, yes. This is the castle… And yeah it’s not just it’s the castle it’s  what..? Private property. Private property. There is a gate at the side that says private property and it’s closed, so

We’ve come all the way… This is the main reason we walked up here today. To see this amazing castle  that’s supposed to be on top of a hill and it’s a big round building that we can’t even go in and see Oh it’s a beautiful little Watchtower, but I mean really

It could have said at the bottom, that it’s a private Castle don’t bother going. Just saying. Oh hello. It’s wet. It is. It’s very soggy. Yeah  But at least it’s not hammering it down, like it  

Was all night, last night and has been so far this  morning. Yes there’s a little bit of Blue Sky too.   That’s nice. That’s a bit of a benefit. We  experienced our first night of serious rain last night.

Oh that was proper cats and dogs. On the roof.  Kept you awake most of the night. Very little keeps   me awake by the way. Nothing would keep you awake  my love. Nothing. So today’s plan is going to  

Be wing it. Very much wing it. Yeah we’d planned to  go to a Chateau with a stunning Gardens, but it’s   not going to be very nice walking around in there.  I don’t know whether we can take the dogs, actually  

Yeah we could take the dogs, but they’d have to  be on leads which is fine but obviously they’re   going to get minging and muddy. Yeah, so we’re  just going to kind of start our journey, we’re going to have a quick look around the local Valley but we’re going to start our journey northwards.  

Because we’ve actually booked our Crossing now on the Euro tunnel. For a week, well we need to be in Calais a week today. Well, we’ve parked up in a car park in a town/  village called… Oh seriously don’t ask me to pronounce  

This one I really haven’t got a clue. We’ll put  it down there but uh… It does look really pretty. It’s a shame the day is looking, well, I was  going to say looking terrible, but the sun looks  

Like it might come out now. It’s desperately trying.  But again this is just further down though the  stream of the Dordogne. That’s moving so quickly. It really is. It’s got a lot of water going through it right now.

A lot, a lot of water. That is really shifting. Yeah  I wouldn’t want to try and swim in there at the minute. Darling, what a find sweet. Hehehe go me. Yeah  go you. By the way we just came to this region  

Because it kind of, was on the way we’d obviously  heard of the Dordogne being apparently very pretty   and we just kind of did a “there” on the map and  this is what we’ve ended up seeing, yesterday’s   beautiful little village on the hill and this, which is… this is stunning. 

This is so pretty. What I’m about to show you is not  the first time we’ve seen this, so… Yeah I know what you’re going for. I’m wondering if there’s something. If it’s a little local joke Maybe. But why have a lot of the towns around here put their signs upside down. Upside down.

Seriously, if anybody knows the reason why these signs are upside down. Because that’s the exit one. It’s on the entrance as well. And we’ve seen it in other towns. Let me know.  I really want to know what the joke is.

I think the weather is catching up with  us. The Sun is going in. I said about   the bright sunshine earlier, that’s over there   but, BIG black clouds. I don’t know if you can..?   Yeah you can just make out in the camera here,  very dark, very moody looking clouds.  

I’m thinking the rain’s caught up with  us though. You think..? Yeah. Whatever gives   you that idea my love..? It’s the splishys in  the splishy puddle behind you and the fact   that we’re getting spat on. Yeah. Someone is playing drums. We might have to do the tour quickly.

Yeah, I can hear… unless it’s water  on something. Yeah it could be. Right, hoods up. Let’s go and see the rest of this Village. So this jacket’s hood is not exactly the most practical for seeing where   you’re going, when it’s not perfect. It’s perfect  when it’s done up here, but for some reason  

When you’ve got this bit loose, it just kind  of, so uh you’ll have to describe everything to me. Proper groggy today, isn’t it..? Yeah. I think we  lucked out quite well with the weather yesterday   Yeah. Today, not so much. It could be worse.  I do love these really pointy roofs though yeah  

That’s… What’s that, snow..? Is that to get the  snow off..? I would imagine so. Do you get lots of snow around  here..? I would imagine so. Because obviously in Spain  because they don’t have much rain even, it’s a  

Really shallow angle, isn’t it..? Yeah. They’re  really steep angles here. By the way, I know   it’s a bit dead, but I do love the, what do you  call it..? Vines. The Vines and stuff hanging all   over that building. Looks like Virginia creeper.  I was just looking at that and thinking what a  

Random place to put a little bit of brick  work. You’re talking about this bit here..? Stone work. and then I then I noticed the two gable marks. There were obviously two houses there at some point and  

There’s you kind of wall between. Yeah, becasue there’s one kind of in there, that’s cut into the thing and I think we’re coming up to another one. I can just see the roof here. That’s cut in as well. I should imagine all of these ones are, but…

That would have been really cool. That being your lounge wall. Minus the Shrubbery maybe. Ah bring me a Shrubbery..!   So we just had a little bit of an amateur moment. We realized that on the back 

Of our coats there’s a little tag thing and you  can drag it down, to stop the “I can’t see where   I’m going” thing. Yeah that was [_____] obvious  wasn’t it..? Oh well.

I think the sun’s come back out darling. Yeah. Trying to. It is trying to and the big old clouds have come over, so. But you want to get down here don’t you..? This is the church here, isn’t it..? Yeah   

It’s quite a nice view of the church though, it’s an unusual view. Yeah, you don’t normally see a church from above.   No. We’re parked over there by the way. There’s our  home tucked in there. Quite a number of motor homes  

And that here today. Yeah. Considering how rubbish the weather is. I imagine this would be really crowded   in the summer though. Oh I bet. This little area is  very pretty. It is. We’ve got a very cutesy little house here.

Hello Gerard. This is a restaurant I’m presuming. What’s that..? We might have to go back down there. yeah That is the way down for us, I think now. That’s a recipe for disaster. That’s a “ending up on your bottom” If ever I saw  it, but… This is cute. Oh no, you can get quad bikes  

Around here. Yep and then through here.. Yeah the  restaurant’s obviously trimming up for Christmas.   Bless them. Through here… This is cool. They’ve got  lots of lovely plants and they’re all labeled as   to what they are and stuff. Yes and little signs  that say respect the plants. Yeah.

So we’re going to risk it then and head down the slippy slope..? Yeah. Make sure I pull my jacket down, so it covers my butt, just in case I go on it. Does actually feel quite slippy to be fair. Well it’s wet isn’t it and there’s leaves and…

What we’re going to do now, is gingerly make our way down these stairs and   get back to the motor home. Hit the road and get  to our next stop. Thoroughly enjoyed the Dordogne. Yeah. As well as saying the name. Yeah. It’s very pretty.

I’d love to come back here and see it in the summer. Yeah. When it’s not raining. Yeah. Beautiful. Look, thanks again for joining us this week and well   Take care. We’ll you next Sunday. Bye.

We spend a couple of days in the Dordogne region of France. But we won’t let the bad weather spoil our visit.

Who Are We?
Live, Love & Explore the world…We are Alison & Darren an expat couple from the UK who after 5 years living on the beautiful Valencian coast in Spain sold up to see the world in our Motorhome Percy. The plan is simple, see as much of the world as we can and along the way experience local cultures, find natural locations to swim, hike up the odd mountain and explore the local towns and villages.

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