Tuesday 15/5/2012

The lovely weather from yesterday vanished and it was cold, grey and drizzly. Which didn't deter us from our usual walk into the village. We went for a bit of an unintentional walk towards the Chateau de L'Herm , which incidentally is on the market for a cool million (apparently you only need to come up with 5% of the money for renovation and the French Government will come up with the rest), unfortunately this building is missing the roof, floors and all useful  amenities.

The plus is that it is in the most lovely setting with moat, gorgeous village and views. The Chateau, originally appeared in writing in the 1300's, was big in the 1500's belonging to the Calvimont family,by the 17th century 11 murders relating to the inheritance of it took place. The weather did improve a little by not raining, so on we went. There was another couple who came up from the village and turned out to be Dutch. We continued on together, they were staying at the caravan park near the Chateau. Just up the road we thought! About a 20km round trip! The weather did break and we had a really nice walk past forests of regrowth woodlots and piles of logs for villagers to use for next winter.  We managed to grab a small hadful of cherries growing alongside the roadside ditches with the best ones infuriatingly close but yet so far.

The farmer was busy on our return with collecting all of yesterdays cutting, with precision and trucks lining up ready to collect it all. Very industrious bunch. We weren't really prepared for today, so didn't have our backpack with provisions, so by the time we were back at Rouffignac, we headed straight for the first place which sold hot chocolate, which was the creperie, then on for a baguette for lunch (we got back at 3pm) and stagger home. Our raincoats were fully dry by our return, in fact most or our walk, and did an excellent job. The other aspect of the walk was the beautiful 15th Century hamlet of L'Herm with all of its Perigordine houses as shown in the photo from the top level of the fortress.