5 off the beaten track in the Dordogne with the family

Sleep in a small village

I push open the wooden shutters on the windows in the bathroom. A spicy summer air fills the room. I look out over the cozy courtyard that belongs to our apartment. Downstairs, my husband and children are playing with a puzzle book at the large table under the parasol. We are staying at Logis Saint Martin in the small village of Montagnac la Crempse, in the west of the Dordogne. The house is a few hundred years old and it exudes a rustic atmosphere. Time slows down in this place.

We play games at the big table, we play darts in the covered area and we swim in the swimming pool that belongs to the apartment. The sounds we hear come from each other, from the birds and the church tower. You would think that we are here outside the high season, but it is August – so the school holidays are in full swing. We notice little of the tourism in the Dordogne here on the west side. And this beautiful place in this small village gives us the feeling that we are the only Dutch people in the wide area. Maybe we are.

Bergerac

From our cottage it is a twenty minute drive to the cosy Bergerac, the town where writer and poet Cyrano 'de Bergerac' came from. We look at his statue, with an enormous nose. The children wonder if he really had such a big nose. We walk through the medieval streets past beautiful half-timbered houses. There are no big chains, few tourists and with my imagination I sometimes imagine myself a few hundred years back in time. The children try to imagine what it was like in the time of the knights and damsels.

Canoeing on the Vézère

Where many people choose to go canoeing on the Dordogne for a day, we choose its quieter sister, the river Vézère. We drive to the town of St. Leon sur Vézère. From there we take a bus upstream, where two canoes are waiting for us. Together with my daughter I get into our ladies' canoe. We paddle away quietly. The trip is exactly how I imagine canoeing in France to be. High rocks rise up on both sides, on one of which there is a large castle. In some places there are plants hanging over the rock, under which we paddle.

Because we have the whole day, we stop a few times at a pebble beach. We open the big barrel and take out the baguettes that we got from a bakery in the morning. We enjoy the good French life. We have chosen the beaches so that they are located near a rapid. I walk to the end of the pebble beach with the children. There we step into the water. “Now float on your backs, boys,” I say. We lower ourselves into the river with our life jackets on, feet up and off we go! Hop with the current.

Archery

3D archery. With this you take a trip through the forest with your bow and arrow and shoot at foam rubber animals along the way. Yes, that sounds a bit sad, but we certainly do not have the ambition for real game. All five of us feel like real adventurers when we are out and about like this. Here in the Dordogne I found a Frenchman who offers this activity after a lot of research. With even more effort I made an appointment in my best French.

Now here we are, the five of us, the Frenchman and our bow and arrow. In a private forest that no one knows and where I don't think a Dutchman has ever been. Together with the man, who explains things to us with hands and feet, we walk a few kilometers through the dense oak forest. Competitive as we are, we all try to be the best at shooting. We're doing pretty well. After the round we're hungry. We spread out the picnic blanket and flop down for an extensive picnic.

Chateau de Bridoire

Who says Dordogne, says castles. Close to our house is Bridoire castle. A castle that offers a hundred old French games. We want to experience that. Because it is a warm day, we leave early in the morning and start with the games outside the castle. We play well-known games such as sack racing, can throwing and tug-of-war. We also play lesser-known games. Of these, catapult shooting is one of our favorites.

When it gets hot in the middle of the day we go inside. I immediately feel the coolness of the castle fall over me. Wonderful. Inside it also appears to be full of games, mainly games that you can play on a board. Full of fresh courage we get started here too. While we play the games in and around the castle, we immediately see the entire castle, which by the way turns out to be very beautiful. Did we end up playing all one hundred games? I don't think so. Somewhere after twenty I stopped counting.

For more family adventures, check out our collection page and be amazed!