Jim & Happy : Bellentre to Larocal

Saying good-bye

Bellentre to Larocal - our drive was 8 hours in total.

The plan was to go from Bellentre to Chambery picking up the motorway to just below Lyon and up to Clermont Ferrand then follow the motorway south for a few hours taking us to Sainte Sabine Born & Larocal.

2 hours from our destination the GPS couldn’t locate the new part of the motorway we were on and went into a spin. We ended up leaving the motorway at the next exit which was 20km further on to get back onto an old road and lucky for us we did otherwise we would have missed out on the beautiful old villages and amazing scenery we passed along the way.

France is different from England where we took the scenic route most of the time, here the country is large and getting from location to location we need to use the motorway to reduce the travel time as the scenic routes would take you days. The motorways are not cheap, yesterdays trip cost 44 Euros approximately $66 in tolls. I think I have mentioned this expense before.

After leaving the motorway we passed a village called Montignac then drove into an area known as the prehistoric capital of the world. It definitely looked and felt like it.

The grottoes are caves once inhabited by prehistoric people. You remember the books ‘Clan of the cave bear’ apparently it was based on this area and the caves. I was in awe looking up at these caves in the rock walls with rock overhangs. Poor Jim was busy driving with me saying WOW, look at that! We will go back for a day trip.

Leaving the valley we drove over the River Dordogne passing through the villages of Le Buisson and Cadouin, both very picturesque then onto Beaufort another pretty French village and finally ten minutes down the road Sainte Sabine with its mayor office, three restaurants and bakery turning off to Larocal.

Larocal consists of a collection of houses set up a road that does a block. The fields surrounding the block of Larocal were full of sunflowers this summer. It would have looked glowing at their prime. Apparently there is crop rotation each year but now being autumn the ground is empty except for the odd sunflower straggler. The deciduous trees of which there is plenty have nearly finished their colour change and starting to drop their leaves.

This area of France known as the Dordogne is popular for expats buying up and renovating old farmhouses quite a few Australians among them.