SARLAT

Our itch to return to the Dordogne after only a week in Normandy and Paris led us to a second car-rental (this time a Citroën Sara), and a pleasant drive back through Limoges and Souillac to a neighboring town, Sarlat. Sarlat is a spectacularly well-preserved medieval town--sufficiently so to provide a large number of filmmakers with readymade and authentic sets. Our new aversion to busy-ness and cities and tourism, however, almost led us to skip Sarlat altogether, since the town was quite animated and full of traffic and scooters and tourist bench-sitters. A hotel we'd chosen in town in the old quarter was going to be very difficult to reach by car because of the minuscule streets and one-way lanes and impasses, so we gave up on the town and chose instead a magnificent country inn that included a 13th century hunting lodge dining room building, and acres of beautifully planted gardens. The mostly windowless rooms were provided with large glass doors with shutters, and were nicely scaled with large comfortable bathrooms and cable service television, including English-language outlets. It was a perfect stop for us.

We walked in the gardens, bought a bottle of local white wine from the patron, sat in the 75 degree sun, then went in for dinner at the inn in the old hunting lodge room that featured a massive "walk-in" fireplace and cool stone walls. The dinner was superb--three courses, each prepared with special care in cooking, presentation, and variety. Buffet breakfast the next morning was equally impressive. No sounds at all until the birds woke us at dawn. This marvelous place, La Hoirie, about two kilometres south of Sarlat, looking for all the world like all the country estates you've admired in French new wave films, is already booked solid for the summer, but rooms were plentiful during early April, and the cost per night was under $70. Next stop: Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, in hopes of finding another such perfect experience. But first we took a winding narrow road through the mountains to the formal gardens of Eyrignac, where F took the guided tour, and saw little of the gardens beyond what the chained corridors and herding guide allowed. The road to it and beyond, however, easily justified the choice to make this visit.

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