Where the heck are we going?

Dordogne

I just got to thinking, I have been going on about the Dordogne without giving you an idea what I’m talking about and where the heck it is. I don’t want to infringe on any copy rights, so I’ll just say that there are a ton of very informative maps of the Dordogne department at Google.

I can tell you that the Dordogne is a river in the southwest of France. It flows east to west and is about 300 miles long heading to the Atlantic Ocean. From what I have read, exploring the length of the river would be awesome. The river lends its name to a large department in the southwest of France, known as the Dordogne. (population is just over 400,000 in the entire Dordogne department) I will find out the correct pronunciation when we visit. I have heard at least 3 different pronunciations of Dordogne, so I will update the pronunciation that the French locals use when I get back from our scouting trip.

From Wikipedia I learned some more details about this French department. The prefecture (capital) of this department is Périgueux. The department is located in the huge Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. The capital of Nouvelle-Aquitaine is the famous wine city, Bordeaux. The Dordogne department is about halfway between the Loire Valley and the Pyrenees mountains. It is essentially the ancient county of Perigord. Subprefectures are Bergerac, Nontron and Sarlat la Caneda. The history is very interesting and one that I am looking forward to getting to know.

There are more than 1500 castles in the Dordogne Department and the famous city of Lascaux which is where there is an extremely interesting display of prehistoric cave paintings. Then there are many Roman ruins for all of the history buffs. All of this history is one of the huge draws to this area for me.

I have heard that there are a lot of British and German expats in the Dordogne.

How do you get there?

For talking purposes, let’s say we want to go to Périgueux, the prefecture of the Dordogne department. From the United States we go through Paris, Charles De Gaull airport (CDG). Then there are options:

1. Fly to Bordeaux from CDG then take an intercity train to Périgueux.
2. Take an escalator ride down from the airport terminal to the train station where you can catch a very comfortable high-speed train to Bordeaux and at Bordeaux catch an intercity train to Périgueux. I’m pretty sure that there is a bus as well.
3. Rent a car and drive.
4. I’m pretty sure that you can even take an Uber (if you have a lot of euros).

A flight is about 1 hour and 15 minutes to Bordeaux from CDG. The train to Bordeaux from CDG takes about 3 hours. Then a train to Périgueux from Bordeaux is about 1 hour and 30 minutes. So, the fly/train option is about 3 hours plus wait times and transfer times. The train/train time is about 4 hours 30 minutes plus wait times and transfer times. The drive is about 5 to 6 hours on some toll roads. As I mentioned in a previous post Elizabeth, and I will drive during our upcoming scouting trip, so we have the flexibility of the car for exploring. Since we will be driving from CDG to the Dordogne in the morning, I’m expecting that we will get to see some of the famous French countryside. We haven’t done a drive like this or visited any of these towns before, so we are really looking forward to the experience.

According to Google maps, we will start from the airport hotel and drive on the A71 south towards our first stop in Sarlat la Caneda. There are some toll roads on this route so we will need to get appropriate coins. I’ll check with the hotel concierge for advice on this. During our drive we will pass through Orleans and over the Loire River, jump over to the A20 and cross the Cher River at Vierzon, then the Arnon River. We will pass Chateauroux and Parc Natural Regional de la Brenne, then on to Limoges and over the la Vienne River, pass by the Parc Zoo du Reynou, then over the Vezere River. We will go through the interchange at Saint-Pardoux-l’Ortigier and stay on the A20. Then a little fancy footwork to jump over to the A89, cross over the Vezere River again and by Peyrignac, do a loop da loop and get on D6089. then watch for D46 (Route Des Chenes) and follow lots of curves then a pretty straight shot to Montignac. At Montignac we catch another twisty road, D704, cross the Vezere river again and then on to some more twists and turns to Sarlat la Caneda. We will definitely need to charge our phones and keep the GPS feature fired up. Sounds like a challenge that I am up for!

Elizabeth and I like spread sheets. I made a big spread sheet and listed across the top the criteria that we had for selecting a potential hometown. As I mentioned in a previous post, the average temperature, rainfall, access to medical care, trains, airport, cost of living, population, recreational activities, expat community, golf and cost of housing were the main criteria. Then, along the left side, I listed 30 or 40 towns that seemed interesting based on YouTube and other research that we did. I filled in all of the information as related to our criteria and then I rated each city.

While we loved Amboise the two times that we visited, it didn’t check all of the boxes of top potentials. The 3 cities that we will visit in the Dordogne department and Auch rated well so we decided to check out the Dordogne. Now for a little information about each of the towns we plan on visiting during our scouting trip. I got the statistical data from Google and Wikipedia.

Sarlat la Caneda

Sarlat is pretty much on a straight-line south of Paris (about a 5 to 6-hour drive). It is located roughly a 2-hour and 30-minute drive east of Bordeaux and about 2 hour and 15-minute drive north of Toulouse. So southwest France. Hopefully that gives you a little orientation. By the way, Sarlat and La Caneda were separate towns until they were merged in 1965. The town is typically referred to as Sarlat.

Sarlat is not far from the banks of the Dordogne River where there is lots of opportunities for boating activity. Also, nearby are caves where Cro Magnon people lived and created their amazing cave paintings. There is an abbey in Sarlat that dates back to 1081. This abbey was one of the few that was not raided by the Vikings. Amazing right? Vikings? The town is just incredibly well preserved and is a town that represents what a 14th century France town was like. It is a very beautiful town. Incidentally it is mostly car free. The town has been the site of several movies too. Population is around 9000.

Transportation includes a train station with routes to Bergerac, Bordeaux and Périgueux. A small airport and bus lines round out the transportation options.

Average temperatures: High 82F, Low 36F, Average precipitation 34 inches per year, about 123 days per year. They did have a record high of about 100F. Average elevation is 620 ft. No wonder there are some winding roads on the way from Paris to Sarlat.

Bergerac

Bergerac is pretty near straight west of Sarlat and a little over an hour drive. It is on the Dordogne River. Population is about 23000. Average elevation is 95ft.

Average temperatures: High 82F, Low 36F and average precipitation 31 inches per year, about 114 days per year. They did have a record high of about 106F. French researchers predict that the average temperature will increase, and rainfall will decrease as a result of climate change.

For the wine lovers, Bergerac has 12 wine appellations for which it is known. There are plenty of things to do and see in the area. During our visit to Amboise wineries a common thread was that the wine makers were starting to buy land in the north in anticipation of higher temperatures in the future. I will be interested to know if the wineries in Bergerac are doing the same.

There are 2 statues of Cyrano de Bergerac in town. As I understand it, Cyrano was not really from Bergerac. I guess, the author of the play, Edmond Rostand, just liked the sound of it. The story is very entertaining and has been adapted to many movies and even TV productions.

The airport, Bergerac-Roumaniere Airport (EGC), has internal flights and also connections to UK airports and Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The train station is an SNCF station and there is bus service too. You can see that travel to other parts of Europe is very convenient.

A pretty cool thing in this town is the Universite du Temps Libre (University of Free Time). This is a non-profit which offers French language classes and cultural programs mainly to increase assimilation of expats. I will definitely have to look into this. I want to get a degree in “Free Time”. I think I will go for a Master’s degree if they offer it. I just knew there was a reason why I like France.

Périgueux

Périgueux is a little north and east of Bergerac and is about a 45-minute drive from Bergerac. Population is around 30,000 (metropolitan area population of just under 114,000) and elevation is a little over 300 feet.

Périgueux is the prefecture of the Dordogne and has been the capital city of Perigord since 200 BC. That’s right, 200BC. There is an interesting story how this name came about. I will leave that for another post. The history is fascinating as the Romans left a legacy of buildings in Périgueux that they built in the third century AD. Visiting the Roman ruins will be a highlight of the visit to Périgueux.

The SNCF train station includes trains to Bordeaux, Limoges and other cities.

Average temperatures: High 81F, Low 34F and average precipitation 34 inches per year, about 115 days per year. They did have a record high of about 100F.

Auch

Auch is roughly 2-hours and 30-minutes’ drive time due south from Bergerac. It is just about 1 hour drive west from Toulouse. This is in the Occitanie region. Auch is the capital of the Gers department. Population of about 22,000 and is at an average elevation of 922 feet. The Gers River flows through this hilly city. I think this city is the closest to the Pyrenees of the towns we will visit on this trip.

The train station has connections to Toulouse and other cities. The airport in Toulouse is international.

Average temperatures: High 83F, Low 34F. Average precipitation 27 inches per year, about 104 days per year. They did have a record high of about 103F.

The city is ancient. The Romans noted its existence during their conquest of the area in the 50s BC.

Here is a cool fact, D’Artagnan was born in the area and was written about by Alexandre Dumas in the ‘Three Musketeers’ stories. YouTube videos show the town sponsoring Musketeer reenactments during certain times of the year.

So that is a rough outline of our scouting trip plan

Fly to Paris and drive to the Dordogne department and check out 4 very interesting cities.

We will take a ton of pictures of The Dordogne Department when we do our scouting trip. Thanks to Google maps and Wikipedia for all of the information above. I can hardly wait to share our firsthand experiences in these cities very soon.

Things are starting to happen quickly now. Our plans have changed with our expected move to France now in September or October of this year. More about this in the next post. See you next week. Please subscribe. Thanks for reading this post. I’m enjoying sharing how our adventure is progressing.

Below picture is at a winery in the Loire Valley, France. Elizabeth is on the left then me in the middle. The couple on the right is Don (Cindy’s boyfriend) and my sister Cindy. This was back in May 2024 when we all met up in Amboise and spent a week together exploring Amboise and the surrounding area. After a few glasses of wine and tasting the awesome cheese, we were talking about living in France. What a great time! Elizabeth and I stayed on an additional week and kept up the pace. LOL