Awaking refreshed – not at all stiff nor sore from our first night sleeping on the ground (nor cold, nor constipated out of fear of falling into the toilet and having so much company while we were at it, nor in the least disheartened by the lack of any nearby coffee) – we walked back into the old town of Bergerac to find coffee. We did find a great little bar/coffee shop with good wifi.
Over coffee we discussed our plans. The upcoming evening was the one time that we did not have any reservations or clear idea of where we would be staying. Pam had a general idea of where she wanted us to be,so we plotted our course on paper maps (old school, eh?) and after Rob ran back to camp for the Peugot we headed off to the town of Le Bugue.
We found a campground called Trois Caupain; checked the bathrooms before committing, then set up our tents in the daylight before heading off to sight-see. We just missed the market and were a little disappointed about that, but we found a place to have a sandwich (LOL … a baguette and some cheese, plunked right on to the table in front of us) and then we started our real adventure, the true purpose of our assault on France.
First up was caves at Rouffignac. This is the one where you ride in on an electric train. We learned that using the train actually protects the site. The lights are turned on automatically ahead of the train and off as the train leaves and it forces a regulated number of breathing humans. It is light and our breath that ruin these ancient cave paintings for future viewers. The tour was all in French (there was one tour in English per day but we had missed it. I am not sure how you find out these things in advance, but it is the #1 thing I would do differently!). The tour guide was great fun, very animated and enthusiastic. I understood about 1/20th of it. I think Pam, with her high school French, got a little more, but none of us got enough to make sense of it. We had was a little mini-blurb in English that they give the pathetic English-speakers. It was probably 100 words and the animated guide probably spoke that many words per second. Anyway, our first prehistoric-painted caves paintings! Etchings and drawings with a black manganese ‘crayon’. We were surprised at how well executed the drawings were. This particular cave is unique in that it has more mammoth drawings than other caves in the area.
We then went to Roc de St. Cristophe which is a ‘stone shelter’ style habitat (abri) that has been sort of recreated as early Neandertal / Cro-Magnon but also includes recreations of how it was used in the middle ages. It was late when we arrived (we were constantly going on random hikes during which Pam and Rob would pick food and tea – and also driving along random country roads) and we were the last ones out of there but the guys waiting to lock up were ever so nice about it.
On our way back to camp we drove around at the whim of our driver (Rob) and discovered La Maison Forte de Reignac, which is a fantastic castle/mansion built into the cliff shelters. It was closed, of course, but we marked it for a later viewing. Then we also found a trail around a nearby ‘pre-history parc’ that was also closed but we were able to walk all the way around and see the little exhibit displays that had been re-created. It was a lovely, well manicured but heavily wooded trail and we could see all of the exhibits in the parc without having to be inside there.
We drove back in to the town of Le Bugue and looked over a few restaurants. We decided on a sort French-Asian place. Susan had a shrimp (gambas) curry. Pam remembers the really good beer – a local lambic. Pam and Rob tried the local ‘perigord salad’ which is duck gizzards which they liked remarkably well.
We went back to camp but it was too cold to hang out – although Rob went up to hang out with the old folks having mussels and fries at the campground dinner. It rained hard and was very cold. This was especially awful when trying to clamor out of the tent in the middle of the night, even if it stopped raining. When Susan bought her tent, she was trying desperately to keep it small and light for the bicycling. When we decided not to bicycle, the tiny tent, low to the ground, was a disadvantage. The only way for the fat old lady to get out of the tent was to squirm on her belly out onto the cold wet ground. This was when Susan made an early declaration that we would be switching to a cabin at the next campground. Met with some early resistance but everyone was on board eventually.
