La Roque-Gageac
Continuing our bike ride down the Dordogne brought us to our next stop for the day, the town of La Roque-Gageac.
La Roque is a small village that is situated at the base of a large cliff just a few paces back from the edge of the river. It faces towards the south and is sort of sandwiched between the rocks and the water.
Sunshine from the South and cliffs behind that protect it from cold weather coming in from the north creates a sort of microclimate in the city that allows Mediterranean plants to grow within the small community. A tropical garden was planted in town back in the 70's and it has been flourishing ever since.
While wandering the streets you'll notice a plethora of banana plants, figs, palm trees, bamboo, and some colorful purple flowers by the name of passiflora. I just learned yesterday from another Hiver blogger by the name of @carolineschell that produce a fruit similar to tropical passionfruit.
La Roque only has 450 permanent residents living there but the town was quite lively when we visited. Judging by the large open parking lot in town I'm guessing that its always quite busy and that it's a major tourist destination in the area.
For such a small community there seemed to be a lot to do there. For starters we noticed a few hiking trails in the area that lead into the forest. We walked one of them ourselves for about 30 minutes and found a few good lookout points with views of the river.
There is also a sort of beach like area next to the river with a park and promenade walking path and a camp ground just down the street for those with busses, vans and RV's.
Kayaking and canoing is a major passtime of the area and you can see a steady stream of them on the river throughout the day.
If you want a more unique experience you can take an hour long river cruise and sail down the Dordogne in a traditional merchant trading boat called a Gabares. To me it looked like a pirate ship.
If you prefer to stay on land, it's also nice to walk up the towns only internal street to view the quaint little homes of La Roque's residents.
Another big draw is the towns 12th century troglodyte fort that is built into the cliff face 40 meters above the river.
For 5 euros per person you can climb up a steep set of stairs attached to the rockface and check out it's interior.
The fort was a strong defensive position back when it was built and continued to be used up until the 17th century.
There isn't a whole lot to see in there though. It's mostly just an empty space with a few plaques telling you a little about its history and how things had changed over the centuries. To be honest, it was mostly unremarkable.
However, the view from the balcony was quite spectacular. It made the 5 euro cover worth it in my opinion.
Along with truffles and foie gras, walnuts are a local specialty of the Dordogne Region. You can see a few walnut tree groves in the photo below. They are all over the area and we passed quite a few during our bike ride that day. From a bike, they just look like trees - which they are.
The last thing that I will mention about La Roque is the Manoir de la Tarde. It's probably the most unique buildings in town.
It was built during the Renaissance Era by the Tarde family and is recognized by its tall round tower with a steep conical roof. The manor covers the street but there is an archway that you can walk through to get to the other side, which was kind of neat.
Domme
Our last stop for the day was Domme, a fortified medieval town built 250 meters above sea level. It wasn't my favorite town that we visited but I would say that it was the most unique of the four and from what I've read it also had the most interesting history. For instance, it was founded in 1281 by Philip the Bold and was given permission to mint its own currency. The city was a prison to the Knights Templar in 1307 during their trial and in 1588 during the war of religion the city was captured from the Catholics by a small band of Protestants who climbed the cliff face and opened up one of the city gates to let themselves in. Daring!
Interesting history aside though, we almost missed out on experiencing Domme. We ended up taking two wrong turns while following Google Maps and tiring ourselves out on random hills that ended up leading to nowhere.
The road to the city was quite steep as well and we had to walk our bikes up to the top. Needless to say, we were fairly tired by the time we arrived.
It was also pretty hot out that day and it was getting a little late in the afternoon so we might have been a tad bit irritable by the time we entered through one of the old city gates.
The main thing that I noticed about Domme was that it had by far the most shops to wander through and explore. Surprisingly
I didn't find them to be overly touristy though. They mostly sold local and regional specialties and artisinal food, jewelry and clothing, not the cheap trinkets that you typically see in tourist gift shops.
There is also a cave in town that we planned to visit but opted out of at the last minute after learning that it was a guided tour only spoken in French. Our French language skills still weren't good enough to make it worthwhile.
One side of town butts up to the cliff overlooking the river and valley and on the corner is a restaurant with a terrace quite close to its edge.
The view from there is amazing and I kind of wish we had stopped for a late lunch or a drink just to take it all in. There is a ton of room to stand in that area and look out, but it would have been nice to sit and relax a bit before our bike ride back to Beynac.
From there we walked a trail that followed along the edge of the cliff that eventually brought us to a large open park.
We stopped a few more times on the way to take in the view before headed back to our bikes to begin the hour long ride back to our vehicle.
The aerial views for both La Roque and Domme are indeed spectacular.
Definitely a scenic place to cycle but that must be challenging to push or drag the bicycle up some slopes.
Yeah the ride is mostly flat except Domme. That hill was a doozy.
JEeez can you please leave me some French destinations to visit, you're taking all the good spots! Isn't there enough places to visit in you (cold) side of Europe 😁?
Lovely pics once again, I think you didn't tempered with them as you sometimes do, but the natural colours look good anyway!
We've pretty much exhausted all of the locations in our area by this point. We have to branch out farther and farther for places to visit nowadays lol.
The sun was really bright that day and washed out some of the pictures. My camera does poorly in low light and too much light. I supposed that it probably the case for most cameras though.
This is how they must have felt when exploring new continents, places...
Yeah that's what I was about to say!
I have been called out for stating the obvious in the past 🙃
I would love to be the permanent resident number 451 :)) Such a beautiful place, and the blue of the river this time!!! Domme is magical too!
So, as I just discovered your blog yesterday (thanks to EdPrivat's beer post ;) ) and your awesome posts, I am picking up some details. You and your wife are making these tours on bikes? You travel with a car or something else, and then take your bikes the smaller tours, do I understand well? If yes, that is amazing!
I remember as a child there was a series of documentaries on the Hungarian TV, a group of people biking through Europe during the summer. But they went just on bikes, no other vehicles involved. I always loved to see that. And somehow it stayed as a remote dream to so something similar, one day when I am old hahaha, though then I could never make so many kilometres with a bike 🤣
Well actually we don't take our bikes on all of our trips. Not many in fact. We took them to the Dordogne region but mostly we just drive everywhere. I wish we could do it all by bike, that would be amazing. We mostly travel on weekends and the places that we have been going to lately are too far to travel to on our bikes so the car is necessary.
At least weekend you can do those trips, that is good. We are bit slow, during the weekday work then weekend comes and I want to do everything I didnt have time from Mon-Friday. But, then we just let ourselves surprise with some unplanned excursions, it can sound contradictory hahah, but yes, we dont plan but hope that some unplanned trips will happen if friends call us, or we just decide in no time to go to the mountains that are bout half an hour from us.
The summer was great, though. Two months of summer holiday for me so that was used well :)
Sometimes unplanned adventures are the best kind. Having two months in the summer is awesome, especially if you're able to go to the mountains. I love the mountains.
You're most welcome! 😁
SO BEAUTIFUL PHOTOGRAPHIES, THE ROQUES IS A MAGIC PLACE.
I WANTO TO BE THERE
I hope you get a chance to one day :)
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Lovely post. How there are houses constructed on the mountain.
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it 😊
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Wow. Beautiful place!