Cruising the River and Meandering in the Garden

 

(More pictures will appear on my Saturday Facebook page.)

 

I’m getting down to the last few sites from my October trip to France. I was happy we signed onto a National Trust tour to get such expert specialists to enlighten us. Towards the end of any tour, though, companies usually scale back the activities. Those days usually involve something that most people will like plus something that appeals to some but not others.

 

Our something-for-all activity was a cruise down the Dordogne River at Beynac. Why there? The Dordogne is a demarcation river for the region, much the same way that towns near me identify as being in the Connecticut River Valley even if they are miles from the river. As rivers go, the Dordogne falls into the category of being more scenic than mighty. There are parts of it that are shallow or narrow or rocky, or some combination thereof. There is also a vast difference between a river such as the wide Garonne and the more humble Dordogne. The vessel used to transport Eleanor of Aquitaine to Beynac, coal, wood, food, and other agricultural products, would have been a flat-bottomed  gabare. Fishermen used it as well, and not coincidentally, that’s what still used to take goods downriver and the show tourists around. Flat-bottomed boats, of course, have very little draft, perfect for unpredictable water flows.

 

There were wide sections on our cruise, but the main attraction is that is a good way to appreciate how towns, shops, and homes hug the river. The castle at Beynac literally looms over the villages. It is not, however, the only seat of power in the region. We floated past several chateaux of those friendly to or bitterly against Eleanor and Richard, especially after Eleanor’s marriage to the Capetian French king was annulled and she became a member of the English Plantagenet family. Luckily for Eleanor’s opponents, not many had the moxie to take up arms against her or her son Richard lest they pay with their heads on a chopping block.

 

I enjoyed the cruise quite a lot. Large fish (catfish, pike, and varieties of zander) leapt from the stream or could be viewed swimming in the clear Dordogne waters. The sun felt so warm that most of us shed our jackets. The wise ones used thin scarves to prevent the sun from burning our necks.

 

Speaking entirely for myself, I could have done without the visit to the gardens of Eyrignac. Some people love to wander through formal gardens, but I find they raise my working-class hackles. The only thing remotely French about Eyrignac was Sophie, our very enthusiastic expert guide. Sophie is 30, but she’s a teen in temperament. That gal loves plants and her favorite phrase was “ooo-la-la.” She made things more fun than they otherwise would have been. After all, we were there in October, so it wasn’t like we were bombarded by color. We were shown a formal Italian garden that dates from  the 18^th century. The manor house was also 18^th century, though it was made of the ubiquitous gold stone of the region. There were a handful of water features, but the big draw was a saw-tooth arrangement of boxwood hedges.

 

I would have been more impressed it they had sculpted them into topiary, but to my eye it was little more than parallel hedges where one block of green poked out, the next was indented, and so it goes. I again confess that formal gardens are just my thing and my idea of flower garden is one where seeds or bulbs are stuffed into the ground, somehow resist my ineptitude, and pop up when they’re supposed to. I could but nod and smile when the serious gardeners of the group said something about Eyrignac in English that was the equivalent of ooo-la-la. I snapped some photos, but was happy to get back to Sarlat for dinner and a nighttime stroll through its medieval sector. I guess the moral is never hire a historian as your gardener!

 

Rob Weir