“This is a day that celebrates the Occitan roots of our people and is a good way for those who are new to the region to understand our culture,” he says. Now Bonnefon, a member of the festival organizing committee in the village of St.-Cyprien, is showing me what I’ve been missing all this time. ![]() Over the years, I’d heard about La Félibrée, seen the floral remnants of this annual fete dangling over villages, but never attended. “In Périgord, we are very attached to our country and our differences, but at the same time we are a true land of welcome,” says Jean Bonnefon, a dedicated Occitanist. The heat is relentless, and the sun beats on white bonnets and crimson bandanna-like scarves, emblazoned with a yellow heraldic cross and one word: “Périgord.” A group of women in long skirts, lace-collared blouses, and bonnets hook arms and circle, square-dance style, with men dressed head to toe in black, including hats that could be distant cousins of the Stetson. Beneath a sapphire sky and rows of hanging paper-flower garlands, schoolchildren fidget before the cameras of their doting parents. “It is necessary to go in order to realize how lucky we are to live in this paradise,” he tells me. His sons have moved to larger cities for work since I last saw him, but he’s confident that they will return. Although it sounds very cosmopolitan, Manouvrier calls himself an old dinosaur of the Périgord (I remind him we are the same age), whose roots run as deep in the fertile soil as those of the oak trees that produce its treasured black truffles. He includes them in some of his ice cream but mostly ships them to pastry chefs and restaurants around the world. His latest obsession is crystallized roses, violets, jasmine, and other flowers, which he preserves via a patented process that maintains their organoleptic and aesthetic properties. I find him in his factory on the outskirts of the already outskirty village of St.-Geniès, where he makes his unusual flavors of ice cream with local ingredients (goat cheese, foie gras, chestnut). He’s corrected my French so many times that I call him mon prof, my teacher. My go-to guy for Périgord and language questions is Roland Manouvrier, an artisanal ice-cream maker, whom I first met in 2006. Like many affairs, mine began with words. ![]() Turn off the main road to ponder the crenulated towers and fairytale turrets of Château de Puymartin(24200 Sarlat-la-Canéda 00 33 5 53 59 29 97), supposedly haunted by the White Lady (alias the 16th-century soul of Thérèse de Saint-Clar, locked in a tower to die after her cuckolded husband found her with her lover).Please be respectful of copyright. Start by heading north out of Sarlat-la-Canéda on the D704 and pick up the D47 towards Les Eyzies-de-Tayac. But gravitate away from the crowded national monument and a rash of subterranean caverns and rock shelters unfolds – etched with evocative bestial art evoking Cro-Magnon activity in the region around 15,000BC to 10,000BC. Lascaux’s prehistoric cave paintings are Europe’s most spectacular. Driving the prehistoric Vézère Valley (52 miles) Along the way, the mighty Dordogne River is a constant tease, playing peekaboo as it ducks in and out of sight, taunting motorists to stop and admire more fully its romantic stone bridges, sweep of green river banks and chalky cliffs, the solitary fisherman thigh-high in waders waiting for a bite … Beautiful landscapes aside, these two drives take you on the slow road to some of the Dordogne’s famous prehistoric sites and fortified bastide towns. ![]() Hundreds of miles of quiet country roads ribbon through rolling hills and oak forests stitched from a thousand legends and lore. This deeply rural part of southwest France region was clearly created with world-class scenic motoring in mind.
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