Hot and sunny all day. We decided to go out in the car. Slung some sandwiches in the cool bag with some cans of pop and some frozen ice packs. Mike sorted out the maps, GPS, camera, etc and we went via Agen Sud to call in at Citroën as Mike had forgotten to get a single small securing clip to hold the brake cables underneath the fuel tank, which cost an exorbitant 1€. Called in Géant to refill the car’s tank at 1,38.9€ (£1.10) a litre and we set off through Bon Encontre to find the D215, heading north-east through Sauvetat and Cauzac; north of Beauville (moto-cross on on Saturday) carrying on up the valley of the Petit Séoune, a tributary of the Garonne, on the D41 to the head at Couloussac, then over the hill and down into the next valley. We stopped on the shady, little used road for our picnic lunch before descending to the Boudouyssou, a tributary of the Lot, and up the hill through Saux and found the D44 (saw a road accident with pompiers in attendance where a motorcyclist had been hit by a car) through Floressas, a lovely little fortress of a village on top of a hill with seven roads radiating from it, to Puy-l’Evêque, a large town on the Lot. We paused while Mike took a photo of the hillside town, then crossed the river and carried on on the D44 to Frayssinet, another village on a multiple crossroad, taking the D673 through Montcléra, Cazals and Salviac, then followed the river Céou, a tributary of the Dordogne, for a short distance, passing a tumble down château on a hill, with big holes in its slate roof, called the Château de Repaire! Over the hills through St Martial-de-Nabirat to Domme, where we crossed the Dordogne. The river at this time of year is shallow and slow flowing, so the tourists were out in their hundreds along the bank, kids in hired canoes and loads of cars generally slowing down the passing traffic. We followed the river road heading upstream to Vitrac then up the valley of the Vitrac, towards Sarlat-La-Caneda, into more slow moving holiday traffic (Germans, Brits, Dutch and Belgians mostly) so we took a left up a very steep hill road with hairpins to the ridge road and turned left, heading back towards the river to la Roque-Gageac. Turned right heading downstream alongside the Dordogne, still filled with paddlers and canoes, past loads of souvenir shops in la Roque and turned left across the river to Castenaud-la-Chapelle.
I took a photo of the impressive fortress on a crag. South, running up the valley of the Céou a short distance, then turned right on the D50 running west a short distance before turning south through La Chapelle Péchaud to St Laurent-la-Vallée then took the D60 through the lovely little village of Prats-du-Périgord (saw a red deer nonchalantly grazing not far from the road so we stopped and I took several photos of it) and into Villefranche-du-Périgord. Took the tiny forest roads past Loubéjac to Montcabrier then had to divert towards Puy-l’Evêque as the D58, the road due south to Duravel was blocked for road resurfacing. No diversion signs so we followed a Dutch car and ended up having to back track as the whole of the D58 was closed. Ran up to Duravel along the river road and turned left across the Lot to Vire-sur-Lot. We thought there seemed to be a concentration of Dutch cars then we saw a campsite whose car park seemed to be exclusively Dutch. A Dutchman must own the campsite for there to have been so many Dutch cars. We carried on through Lacapelle-Cabanac to Mauroux, then Tournon-d’Agenais then south on the D656 southwest towards Agen then south through Lacour (another hilltop gem) to Bourg-le-Visa, crossing two more valleys then down the Barguelonne valley back into Valence. Back at six. The cabin was hot having been shut up all day, but I’d left all the blinds closed so it wasn’t too bad.
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