Photo by Nicola Brown
“Who’s on gate?” Dad calls from the driver’s seat, rousing Mum and I from our snooze. I step out to meet the warm stillness of a French country evening. Crickets gently chirruping as they’ve done faithfully throughout the summer nights for the past 30 years. A familiar childlike giddiness guides my hand on the rusty bolt, dashing gleefully with me into the walled garden.
These trips to France are a near-annual family pilgrimage. Our 13th-century farmhouse in the Dordogne is the first place I plan to return to when we can travel again. It is just as spellbinding today as my very first memories of it decades ago.
Life at La Vielle Maison in the Dordogne
Grape vines hug the two-foot-thick stone walls above which the steeply gabled roof leans out, as if it might whisper something candidly to the old walnut tree. Dense leafy ivy continues its goal of trying to swallow the old pig sty, now a recycling pitstop for our many empty wine bottles.
Photo by Nicola Brown
La Vieille Maison has presided over centuries of history, and is full of the kind of delightful idiosyncrasies that make the odd spider worth tolerating. How many people have an arrow slit in their bathroom, for instance? Or a Lascaux cave art replica from the time of the earliest humans painted on the living room wall?
From our hilltop vantage you can just about still see the sun setting over the valley. You can see something else, too: nothing ever seems to change here.
It strikes me that this is what France excels at, and this is why we keep coming back. No matter what hideous and unwanted novelties the world throws at us, no matter what level of instability and angst we find ourselves living through. In this timeless little corner of the world, we can be confident that everything is how we left it. At least here I know I can always find that genuine sense of coming home.
Lunch at La Vielle Maison. Photo by Nicola Brown
In the morning, it’s croissants. Dad can no longer hear the soft ping of the oven so he’s in charge of coffee. These buttery, flakey morsels go fast, so we wake up early for market days in Le Bugue on Tuesday mornings. In a fraying basket by the cast iron hearth are the other fruits of our haul. Reine-claude (plums) and pruneau (prunes), Cabécou de Rocamadour (local goat cheese) and fraises des bois (wild strawberries). The crowded market, narrowly sandwiched along the main street by ancient limestone buildings, celebrated its 700th anniversary in 2019.
Through the little kitchen window I watch the neighbour’s chickens having their petit déjeuner too, and wonder what fine dish they will contribute to later. A rich coq-au-vin, perhaps.
Finding strength and stability in food, family and tradition
Food is everywhere you look in France. But it’s more than just a hedonistic pleasure. It’s an anchor that secures the centrality of family and tradition. For the French, cooking and eating together, as much as it’s about the food, is about the time spent with the people you’re eating with.
Auberge Le Mirandol in the narrow cobbled alleys of Sarlat. Photo by Nicola Brown
The following day after a heavy meal of confit de canard with creamy scalloped potatoes at Auberge Le Mirandol in Sarlat-la-Canéda, another of the charming medieval towns that dot the region, Dad and I exchange a grin across the table. We already know we’re both ordering crème brûlée for dessert. It’s a tradition.
Canoeing the Dordogne river
Days later we make our usual concerted effort to work off the crème brûlées on a 14-kilometre canoe trip down the Dordogne river. The most scenic stretch flows from the towering cliffs and stunning rock-hewn village of La Roque Gageac, winding through the valley known as the land of a thousand chateaus to Port d’Enveaux. If there is a more magical place to canoe in the world, I haven’t found it yet.
Dordogne river. Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
I let the strong current do the work as I ogle the scenery. Each bend revealing another strategically built castle defending its post. The once English-owned Castelnaud emerges first on the left bank, its powerful position seemingly unrivaled. That is until the river bends right and the yet-more-impressive Beynac, its French-owned rival, issues a challenge.
Castelnaud castle. Photo by Simon Hermans on Unsplash
Staring each other down, they remain locked in a silent reminder of the struggle between the French and the English during the 100 Years War. Seemingly unaware, families from all backgrounds picnic blissfully with fistfuls of baguette and third helpings of vin rouge on the grassy banks beneath the ramparts.
We float gently on as France takes its collective sieste in the hazy afternoon heat. A papery winged dragonfly perches on the inviting brim of mum’s sun hat. They’ve always liked her best.
Canoeing down the Dordogne river. Photo by Nicola Brown
Small town artists and festivals
In distinct contrast to the serenity of the Dordogne river is the speed of the roads. Dad’s Formula One style driving on the winding single tracks is reliably punctuated by yelps of protest from the passenger seat. We’re trying to reach Meyrals before Galerie Magis closes. Among the hay bails and hamlets that whizz by is a field of straw-stuffed creatures adorned with everything from rusty hubcaps to swimming goggles. Meyrals’ annual scarecrow festival is in full swing.
Inside Pascal Magis’ studio we are all lost in the folds of one of his thick, textured abstracts. “This looks like a Périgord goose, or perhaps a willow tree, do you see?” asks mum.
Abstract painting by Pascal Magis. Photo by Nicola Brown
We watched our favourite local painter become a world-renowned artist over the years before (and after) he died in 2011. His childlike spirit echoes my own memories of this studio as a young girl, and it lives on in the sprightly brushstrokes of an original acrylic now hanging in my parents’ living room in Canada. I can still remember that kind crinkle with a hint of mischief in his eyes and the paint splattered liberally all over his Italian leather shoes.
The Dordogne seems a fitting place to be an artist or a poet, devoid of all the digital distractions of modern life. Growing up I spent many idle hours buried in books, curled into doorways or perched on window sills like so many a French cat. Or inventing games with my cousins that involved racing around a ping pong table in the barn on tiny tricycles well into the years when we’d outgrown them, determinedly draping our adult-length legs over the handlebars to reach the pedals.
A place to unplug fully
Since we bought this little house in rural southern France, we’ve never had a TV. There’s no phone, and there’s no internet. When we get back after a day of wine tasting at Chateau de Tiregand, or an alfresco classical concert on the grounds of Chateau de Campagne, we sit and we talk. We spend time together as a family.
Photo by Nicola Brown
As I embark on my own journey of building a family in the next few years, I can’t wait to share this special corner of the world with them. I hope, in turn, my kids will share it with their kids too. So no matter how much the world changes through the generations, our family will always have La Vieille Maison, a place that never changes; a place to call home.
On our last night we’re enjoying one of the region’s fanciest alongside one of its least fancy culinary treasures: foie gras, a rich liver pâté, and cassoulet, a sausage and white bean stew. Beyond the kitchen window it’s pitch black outside and even the crickets have gone to bed. Mum’s head gently bobs as she nods off at the table. I can feel my eyes closing too.
Don’t forget to look up
“Come on, put your shoes on, I want to show you something,” comes Dad’s voice from the doorway. We take that walk a few yards down the road, the beam of the flashlight the only thing I can see, scanning ahead across the gravel. With each familiar step I get a year younger until we reach the darkest point on the hill and I am no more than 6, my tiny hand lost in his giant palm. He clicks the flashlight off and the sky erupts in a billion stars. The prominent band of the Milky Way glows in celestial prowess as the light pollution of the modern world seems a distant memory. I remember learning when I was young that because of how long it takes their light to reach earth, when we look at the stars we see them as they were years ago.
“Look, there’s the Saucepan,” Dad says, “and Orion’s belt”. I can just about make out the knowing smile on his face. “Exactly where we left them.”
Photo by Natalia Terskaya on Unsplash
When You Go
Shop at local farmers’ markets: Le Bugue Market on Tuesday mornings
See cave paintings: Font de Gaume in Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil
Eat regional specialties: Auberge Le Mirandol in Sarlat-le-Canéda
Rent canoes along the Dordogne River: Canoe Roquegeoffre (+33 5 53 29 54 20) or Canoe Détente Dordogne in Port d’Enveaux
Experience local art and festivals: Galerie Magis in Meyrals, Meyrals scarecrow festival
Go wine tasting: Château de Tiregand in Creysse
Listen to live music: Château de Campagne outside Le Bugue
Want more French travel inspiration? Check out France Two Ways: Paris to Provence
Nicola Brown
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