Eating My Words.....Bourdeilles

Well, yesterday we went to Brantome and writing about it iin this blog I stated that I did not think we would find somewhere as nice in this area.......how wrong I was!

Today we decided to have a look at two more closeby villages, one of which is listed as one of France's Beautiful Villages.....and both of them give Brantome a run for its money...I cannot believe how many gorgeous villages and towns we have seen in the South West of France in the last few weeks, it is fantastic.

Firstly. we headed to the small village of Bourdeilles, again about a 30 minute drive and not too far away from Brantome, it actually lays on the same river, the River Dronne.

As we drove into the village down the hill of the narrow Main Street, Lesley started to fall for it...everywhere she looked you would hear "Oh, that's lovely" or "That's gorgeous"...then we came to the river...wow...it was time to find a car space and get out and have a good walk around.

The Chateau High Above The Main Street

We started off exploring the area around the river as we had parked right next to it.

The View Next To The Carpark

The Dronne divides the town in two, and we walked all the way around both halves.

Looking Across The River

We decided to explore the opposite side of the river to where we were parked first, so we started the cross the bridge. We got a whole 10 metres across when we were forced to stop......what an incredibly beautiful view...an old water mill, the back drop of the old Chateau/Castle, and the beautiful gardens of the adjoining properties.

The Watermill and Chateau

Looking Towards The Chateau

The Other Side Of The Bridge

We walked around the village and recrossed the river further down, and then walked back into the village along the road. There is an amazing cliff face here that overhangs part of the road, this is the sort of thing that we saw in Brantome yesterday where they had built houses into. But here, looking back into the village it made for a brilliant photograph.

Over Hanging Cliff Face

We made our way back into the village and walked under the old chateau past the water mill.

Looking Up From The Base Of The Chateau

The Old Mill Wheels

Walking Up To The Chateau Entry

We made our way up the hill to the front gates of the chateau, there were more over hanging cliff faces that had been carved into by previous generations, this place is amazing.

Nature and Man Made Structures Come Together

The Chateau Entry

The Church At The Top Of The Hill

The Park Behind The Church

Behind the chateau (from the direction we walked up to it) we found an old church even higher up the hill, so we walked up and past this and found a great little park with the most amazing views back over the area we had just walked past.

The Views From The Park Behind The Church

It was approaching lunch time, so we made our way back into the village to find somewhere to eat.

There were a number of restaurants offering good lunch time menus, we chose one that gave us a 3 course meal of local type foods for just 13 Euros each.

This Where We Ate

Our lunch consisted of an entree of a Salade de Gesiers, a main of Confit de Canard and Pomme de Terre, and a dessert of Crumble aux Pommes. But what is all of this in English? Dessert is easy...Apple Crumble. The Main a Confit of Duck with a duck fat fried sliced potatoes...very tasty. Now the entree had us baffled, so as we ate it I checked our French translation book...a salad of Poultry Entrails....WHAT???

I told Lesley what we were eating, she did not believe me, I think the fact that I was giggling the whole ttime I tried to explain what we were eating made here think I was kidding....better to leave her thinking I was mucking around.

Lesley Tucks Into Her Poultry Entrails

After lunch we made our way back to the car, and headed towards Saint Jean de Cole, a village listed in France's Most Beautiful Villages.

 

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