Towards Dordogneshire and beyond.

Millau to Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, 116 miles 

Instead of continuing north from Millau up the A75 (free, hooray!) autoroute to Clermont-Ferrand, we opted to head across country on the D911 in the direction of Rodez. This piece of our mental jigsaw of France we have never managed to put into place - and now we have. Given the bleak upland terrain around Millau, I anticipated more of the same. In fact, despite the altitude the countryside is green and wooded and fun to drive through as the road snakes uphill and downhill dale, under a big sky, which today was a deep blue from horizon to horizon.

Tellytubby land with wind turbines

The Causse - more wooded than I had anticipated

The only giveaway that at times the road reached almost 3000' was that even in late May some trees were only just coming into leaf. We reached Rodez at lunchtime coinciding with the noon traffic jam. If we were not hurrying homewards with a ferry to catch in just a few days I would have liked to have visited the Musee Soulages. Pierre Soulages was born in Rodez in 1919; astonishingly he still does. Though I suppose it is a matter of opinion if, as François Holland claims, Soulages is the greatest living painter; what is indisputable however, is he happens to be the last living exponent of Modernism. His European take on Abstract Expressionism, a style associated primarily with 1950s New York, can resemble Rothko, but Soulage's palette is more mono-chromatic, and even darker and psychotic than Rothko's in intent. Another time, I promised myself. 

17 December 1966 by Pierre Soulages

Onwards, up the D840 towards Aubin and Figeac. It feels remote here, redneck territory signified by a preponderance of peeling le Pen posters, very few defaced by Hitler moustaches, which is the norm in the more civilised parts of France. "It's a bit Vosgses around here," I observed gloomily. As explained elsewhere, Vosgsesness is our private cipher for any god-forsaken area of France, characterised by mundane architecture, rural deprivation, de-populated villages inhabited solely by odd looking elderly people whose sole amusement appears to involve staring balefully at the occasional passing vehicle. 

Vosgsesness

We left the main road and headed north towards St. Cere. The landscape became more attractive and the vernacular architecture more typical of the Dordogne, a country of woods and meadows dotted with creamy stone farmhouses with steep red pantiled roofs and round towers.

The way it is.. squashed flies on the windscreen, tractor ahead doing 15mph and oncoming traffic...not Vosgesish though...

Off the main road, though the lanes were narrow, the traffic was light, so we made better progress reaching the river itself at Bretenoux. The outskirts of the place seemed blighted by retail sprawl. The heart of postcard pretty Dordogneshire, so beloved by the British as a sunnier version of the Cotswolds, is located a few kilometres downstream around Sarlat. I suppose the land of  Wallace Arnold and Saga spawns retail sprawl. We were now close to our destination - Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, which happens to be by the Dordogne, but not in the Dordogne; the town is located a few kilometres beyond the eponymous Department's border and actually is in Correze. The towns of the upper Dordogne - Beaulieu, and Argentat - are as lovely as those downstream in Dordogneshire itself, but are a little less frequented and less dependent solely on tourism. Consequently they do not achieve the same sanitised charity-calender look of places on the coach-tour itinerary. To continue the Cotswold comparison, they are more Hook Norton than Bourton-on-the-Water.

Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne is a lovely riverside town, its medieval centre a tangle of timber-framed houses, narrow alleys and attractive small squares. With excellent local food shops, stylish craft shops selling well designed fabrics and objet d'art, it is a tourist town, but remains enough of a functioning community to have small supermarkets in the centre and a clutch of old cafes in a tree shaded square, well frequented by locals and visitors alike.

Bealieu's old river port.

Only one gate remains of the original three.

Square opposite the Abbey

Great patisserie and charcouterie 

Beaulieu's most significant monument is the large abbey church of St Peter in the centre. Most of the building is Romanesque and the large tympanum over southern portal is unusual for a Benedictine foundation in this part of France, Rather than depicting the Last Judgement designed to scare the living daylights out of 10th century illiterate peasants, it shows the second coming, - Christ in Majesty - it is uplifting rather than terrifying, which I like.

Christ in Majesty - the trumpets announce the Second Coming

Not quite as scary as some local sculptures  - but it would not be Romanesque without the occasional many headed monster.

Tree of Jesse 

 The campsite we stayed in,  Camping Les Illes, is part of the Huttopia chain of sites. As the name suggests its occupies an island - a pretty wooded one - yet is only a five minute stroll from the town's ancient centre - but more of that in the next post.