The Dordogne is where the south of France begins and where some of the country's best food and wine is found. Tom Otley finds a villa rental break the perfect way to sample the fresh local produce.
The Dordogne has a lot going for it: wonderful weather, beautiful countryside, a real rural feel - and a long tradition of shopkeepers who are mercifully patient with our school-level attempts at French. The biggest draw of all, though, is the food and wine, both of Bergerac and Bordeaux, just a little further east.We drove there from the Loire, having spent a week shivering in a caravan, and during the course of the five-hour drive south we watched the temperature creep from 16 to 34 degrees.
We passed through Bergerac and over the River Dordogne with its fabulous stone bridge, golden in the afternoon sun, then drove south to the ridge of hills running east to west, through mile after mile of vineyards. In the Bergerac region there are 13 different appellation controlées (the official areas for wines) ranging from full bodied reds suitable for ageing to easy drinking whites. But the vineyards we were passing through were those of Monbazillac - a sweet wine second in reputation only to Bordeaux's Sauturnes - and Saussignac, a lesser known but equally seductive wine.
There is no shortage of hotels in the Dordogne, of course, but renting a house brings its own freedoms. For those of us who travel frequently on business, the thought of staying in yet another hotel, no matter how lovely, is not particularly tempting. What's more, one of the joys of France is its food and wine. You can get both at hotels, but how much better to spend the mornings at daily local markets buying fresh ingredients, then preparing the food and eating it with friends. As for the wine, hotels will have
a good selection, but there is inevitably a mark-up. It's much less expensive to find a local, friendly proprietor, and you can leave with enough quality bottles to keep everyone supplied for a whole week. We speculated that the wine tasted even better knowing it would be twice as expensive to buy in the UK, even supposing we could get hold of it.
Choosing a house to rent is easy using the internet. You can type in your requirements, number of people and specific region, and take virtual tours of the properties online. But, rather like viewing houses to buy online, there is a temptation to look at the very best on offer - places so grand that you'd need to win a life-changing amount of money to afford them. The advantage of renting, however, is that the larger your group, the less you pay - and the grander the place you can afford to stay in.
Our eventual choice was Chateau les Tours de Lenvege, overlooking the Dordogne valley and about nine miles from Bergerac. It consisted of two renovated 13th-century defensive towers with ivy creeping up the stone. Connecting them was a hayloft converted into bedrooms. It slept 12, and when the price was divided it became about £270 per person for a week (depends on season). This seemed affordable, especially considering we were sleeping in bedrooms larger than our whole house back in the UK. And for the six members of our group aged under five, going to stay in 'a castle' was a big selling point.
Included in the price were the services of house manager Henrietta, a maid (one visit per week) and a handyman/pool man in the form of Henrietta's husband, who was also on hand to reprogramme the satellite TV every time one of the adults broke it (we blamed the children).
Constructed over the centuries from pale and extremely hard limestone, the Chateau has been through many transformations. The common thread behind each being that people have simply fallen in love with the place and have spent a large amount of money on it as a result. I can see how it happens. Gradually, over the course of the week, I grew used to talking about the children being 'in the south wing', or how I had left something in 'the pool house'. Renting a large house means growing accustomed to a life we all believe we deserve, but that fate has so far denied us.
It didn't take long to adjust. On the first night, after putting the children to bed, the six of us sat around the small table just outside the kitchen. The second night, we repositioned the garden furniture and ate outside, with a citronella candle to keep the insects away. It was the third night before we felt sufficiently at home to lay the dining room table, which was big enough for 24 people. But before long, we felt quite at home with the giant wrought iron chandelier, red colour scheme and shuttered windows in four-feet thick walls.
So we learned to cope with living like millionaires, without either the costs or the responsibilities. As anyone who has a swimming pool knows (and as I know, having been the custodian of one for seven days), they require a lot of upkeep. Ours was expertly tended, but the hours spent on cleaning, treating, filtering and inspecting it have convinced me that if I ever own a house large enough to have a swimming pool, it will be less expensive to rent the nearest public pool for the day than to have one built.
Day trips to markets, and to Bergerac were a highlight, as was a visit to the Maison des Vins in the Cloitre des Recollets, but the seduction of the house meant we didn't leave half as often as we should have. By night five we were talking grandly about how, if we had our way, we would change the orientation of the house so it looked down over the surrounding hillside of vines to the Dordogne, miles distant somewhere in the large flat valley. Easy to imagine when you're not actually the owner, having to pay hefty heating bills through the winter.
Bordeaux was only a few hours' drive to the east, but instead we made do with exploring the numerous huge stores selling wine along the roads. Their daunting selections of wines came not just from Bergerac and Bordeaux, but from every region of France.
Ultimately, though, the hot weather sapped our desire to explore, and the most magical time was that quiet hour in the evening when the breeze picked up for an hour or two, stirred by the cooling land. The Dordogne feels pleasantly empty compared with England, and we would make grand plans for the future, in which we would emigrate, buy a vineyard and raise bi-lingual children - before finishing another bottle of wine and going into the kitchen to murder another rustic French recipe.
French Chapters offers seven nights at Chateau les Tours de Lenvege from £3,255. The villa takes a maximum of 12 guests and the price includes maid service for six hours per week, and a house manager to organise excursions such as wine tastings and sculpture classes. A chef can also be hired, on request. For information and reservations, please call Chapters by Abercrombie & Kent on 0845 0700 618 or visit www.villa-rentals.com.
