Walking in the Dordogne

5 March 2013 

When I first came to France I had no idea if places that looked good for walking were actually public or private or how to discover local walks.  A friend of ours, Mike Bickerton, ran into this trouble when he tried to turn his car round on what is essentially a public right of way.  Several people from the overlooking house came out and raged at him in French.  Even the ancient grandmother joined in, waving a stick at him menacingly.    They became so threatening and unpleasant that Mike (habitually a polite man) eventually said (in English) “Do you speak English?”  “Non, non,” they shouted.  “Well, F*** off then,” he replied.   We think this lot were holiday makers, perhaps from Paris - they’ve never been seen again and the Dordogne locals aren’t like that.

Last year I discovered how to find the local walks.  These are all outlined on plans of “Promenades et Randonnées” which you can buy very cheaply from the local tourist offices.  They give you information about the walk such as how long, how difficult and where to start.  Then the walk, itself, has little yellow markers along the way so you know you are following the right track.

Mary Rogers, Kerstin Wood, Dolly and I walked the Boucle Les Bories at Tourtoirac yesterday  (9kms, difficult, plus or minus 3 hours, listed in the map of Hautefort walks).   There was very little road to it, mostly track alongside fields or through woods.  There was some uphill work which we none of us enjoyed but we knew it was good for us.   

Dolly possibly did 18kms as she kept running ahead and then running back and also running from person to person to round us up if anyone lagged behind.   The sun shone beautifully – it was 14 ⁰ here yesterday –   we were walking with our extra woollies draped round our persons, rather than on our backs.   

 We took just over 2½ hours to get round and when we got back to my house we had tea on the terrace with Mike - first time this year.