Sarlat-la Canéda

Jenny Harlen

02 Apr 2025 — 2 min read

So here’s some pretty pictures from Sarlat-la Canéda yesterday, Selma and I had such a nice ride up over the hills, through little villages and farm fields. The leaves are popping out this week - it’s spring!

Everyone is busy opening for the season. Here in this little square is a really rather good restaurant - bit of spring cleaning going on it seems, look at all those power tools! Can’t be easy when your building was built before the hundred year war and upgraded with a stone staircase tower just after. That’s 12-1300s for before and 1400s for after!

📍France, Dordogne, Sarlat-la Canéda

Chinon: so many stories!

I biked up to Chinon in the sun, stopped for a quiet café on the square, parked up Selma the bike by the drawbridge, and strolled on in. Meh…not such a grand chateau as the others here on the Loire, I thought, just a few crumbled towers on a

The shopping street in a cave

This came as a complete surprise, Selma the e-bike and I were just biking along the river back to the van and took a back way because the road along the Loire was a bit narrow. And suddenly found ourselves ducking through arches and tunnels, our path took us through

Trogdo villages

Selma and I are out exploring, and look what we found! Lots of these houses, shops, garages dug into the cliffside. They call them trogdolyte dwellings, for some reason that makes me think of Shrek. Actually it just means houses in caves. We’ve just stopped at a troglodyte cafe

Eleonore and co at Fontevraud

Mission accomplished! I found the three powerbrokers of the 12th century! Eleonore, Henry, Richard. Plus a daughter-in-law, the wife of John. Eleonore of Aquitaine was one hell of a woman, she was married to two kings, father of three kings, and her daughters were married into crowns of their own.

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Chinon: so many stories!

The shopping street in a cave

Trogdo villages

Eleonore and co at Fontevraud