Bergerac
I love holidays away from home that feel much longer. For us, Bergerac in July was one of those.
We stayed in a bed & breakfast on Rue Clairat, just North of the Dordogne between the two bridges and a few minutes’ walk from the centre of the old town. Despite the cutesy name “I love Bergerac”, the hotel was perfect for our needs, comfortable and roomy but small and well equipped. The hosts were superb, friendly and sanguine in a time of political challenge. “We have a choice between cholera and smallpox”. Today is election day in France and they suffer no less than the British and Americans from an electoral majority bipolar disorder. For France, it looks like messy coalition and unstable compromise will emerge from the distraction of the Olympics just about to get under way.
One of the many good suggestions made by Jean-Marie, was to visit the Quai Cyrano on top of the tourist information office, and to enjoy a taster platter of local produce, including foie gras, charcuterie and a glass of wine, overlooking the Dordogne in the sunshine.
I had spent at least five minutes every day for the previous 1038 days trying to improve my French with DuoLingo, the guilt-trippy language app. Despite that, my confidence started low. Every attempt to speak French was greeted by excellent English responses. One waiter welcomed us to our table with English menus. When I asked loudly how he knew, he just roared with laughter. I suppose a look in the mirror might offer clues.
With the same aim of self-improvement, perhaps, I also took sketching materials with me on the trip, hoping to get some practice in. There’s quite a lot to do yet, but I feel more confident as I sketch and paint more. It’s a no-brainer, really, isn’t it? Anything involving skill requires practice, if only in handling the materials.
These two pictures were both sketched and painted in the evening from reference photographs taken on the day. Despite that freshness of the image, I definitely do not get the same satisfaction as I do from a live, on location sketch. There’s rarely enough time for that, though, is there? Maybe that’s the secret to it. The satisfaction is had from producing something quickly. Below is perhaps an example of that, sketched where the touristy old town meets the newer, where locals eat. A main course plat North of the Rue Saint Georges is several euro cheaper than in the old town nearer the river. I stopped to sit for a few minutes opposite the Notre-Dame de Bergerac church, and started sketching with no intention of anything other than just trying to catch the feel of the place.
I began, over-ambitiously, trying to scope the proportions of the church across the central marketplace, but quickly rubbed that out (you can just see the traces) in favour of something I felt more doable in a few minutes. I brought only cheapie pencils to block out structure in pen and watercolour sketches but found myself getting lost in exploring the range of values I could render with a simple HB. 
The sculpture on top of the monument was contrasty in the afternoon light and something made me want to look more closely at it. The monument itself is dedicated to the local citizens lost to the Great War and subsequent campaigns, including individual plaques added for contemporary sacrifices pour la patrie. I am glad I spent time looking and thinking about that.
We hired a very cheap car1 from LeClerc for a couple of days, thanks to a recommendation from our host, Jean-Marie. That gave us the opportunity to go explore some of the gorgeous places along the Dordogne to the East of Bergerac. We started with a leisurely tour and gourmet wine-tasting at Château Monbazillac. What that means, of course, is that we are both now wine experts, having been trained to examine, inhale, swirl and consider not only the nectar in the glass, but also the pairing with great food. The experience was superb and properly educative.
The Château is open to visitors and includes exhibits that show a real effort to educate and inform, not only on the making and blending of the wine but also the history of the Château. The top floor of the Château is given over to an art installation which showcases and promotes local artists. This seems to be something very French; it is valued and celebrated to be an artist in and of the community. This was also evident in Bergerac, too, and we had the opportunity to see Romain Thiery’s exhibition Requiem pour Pianos in the town before it heads to Arles. The bonus for us both as photographers2 was to meet Romain’s father who was running the gallery in the centre of Bergerac.
From Monbazillac we drove down to Issigeac, one of the bastides, or fortified towns built in the 13th and 14th centuries. This was a fascinating place in terms of its organisation and architecture, following the circular model favoured by the French (as compared to the straight-road model made by the English). The centre of town was functioning, too, with boutiques, cafés and even an estate agent. We had a look and went through that pipe dream, what the French call “a Castle in Spain”, of dreaming of buying a little bolt-hole down here for the weekends or summer retreats. I am sure that very few French people actually own un Chateaux en Espagne. I guess there’s nothing stopping us making our own home a Chateau en Fife, is there? I expect the grapes might not be quite as sweet, maybe. There are so many beautiful villages along the Dordogne but our hostess, Sylvie, had particularly steered us to take a look at Limeuil, at the confluence of the Vezère and Dordogne rivers. There’s quite a climb up to the top of the hill where the church is located but it is worth it to appreciate the appeal of the place.
The high places sustained their appeal as we headed back to Bergerac via Trémolat. We found a viewpoint there right across the flood plain delineated by one of the loops in the wide meandering river that gives this region its name.
There is so much more to write about and share from our brief adventure in the Dordogne. I have barely mentioned the superb food we enjoyed here. Whilst individual serveurs/euses may have erred on occasion, the food quality was always sublime. Foie Gras may not be to your liking but it is one of the local specialities and so you must expect to see it on the menu – and on the menu it is, pretty much everywhere. That takes nothing away from the wider options from the farmers and producers in the area, who gather at the market on Wednesday and Saturday in the centre of the town, in the streets around the Notre Dame de Bergerac. That produce also appears on the plates in cafés and restaurants and you can taste it in every bite. Chefs are creative with what they are given and we were not disappointed at any time.
We will leave a review for our hosts, who went well beyond expectations in helping us make the very most of our time in Bergerac3. We will surely return again to explore more of this place.
Footnotes
100km on 2 days hire of an automatic Renault saloon, less than €80 including fuel and a car wash.↩︎
albeit less professionally focused↩︎
Ryan Air deserve a mention, too, I suppose, for successfully if firmly landing, twice. Bergerac airport is “regional” in all respects, so is a better experience if yours is the only flight they have to deal with. More than that pushes their capacity a bit.↩︎