Thursday, November 10, 2011

Sarlat-la-Caneda

After the enjoyable time in the Bordeaux region we left for Sarlat-la-Caneda in the Dordogne River Region.  This region was the site where most of the Hundred Years War was fought between France and England.  In many cases you can actually see where an English Castle was on one side of the river and a French Castle was opposite it.  The war and possession of these castles seesawed back and forth for many years.

The region is also riddled with prehistoric caves with fantastic cave paintings that are dated back to the cave man era.  Many of the paintings are still in incredibly good condition and are amazing in their depiction of animals from that era.  They showed woolly mammoths, sabre tooth tigers etc.

The town of Sarlat is situated very centrally to the region of caves and we had booked a few excursions with a guide that has an incredible depth of knowledge of the region and the prehistoric caves.  Sarlat is an ancient city that has a reputation as the one city in the Bordeaux Region that was never conquered and occupied by the English during the Hundred Years War.  It is for that reason that the French Kings heaped many honours on the town and they received nany priveledges from the crown that included some very extraordinary buildings.  The apartment we stayed in was built during this time and was considered a very important site as many of the regions Lawyers worked from the building. 

Sarlat is also famous for it's Foie Gras and just about every second building in the pld city was a Foie Gras shop offering all sorts of Foie Gras at different levels of quality and of course price.  You could pay anywhere from 12Euros a kilo to over 100Euros a kilo.



Restaurant on the "Route du Foie Gras" - this was on our way to Sarlat



Outside the entrance to our 14th century apartment in Sarlat


The actual door to our building


Our apartment living room, the door at the far end was the laundry room



Our kitchen


Our bedroom


Restaurant just outside our door


The upper window was our bedroom



Town square in the old city, our apartment was just off to the left.


Foie Gras store in the square


Geese are the staple of Sarlat but their town synbol is a Salamander


A house in Sarlat

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