Inland…
We left the ocean to head inland, hoping to find some peace and quiet, far from the hordes of tourists invading the coastline… So here we are in the Périgord, discovering the different facets of this pretty, rather peaceful region, from the banks of the Charente to the east of the Brive Basin…
General statistics of the adventure so far…
Total Distance (km)
Gasoil (L)
Countries Visited
11.145 km
1.802 L
4
One last day by the ocean…
25-26/07/2025 – St Georges-de-Rex -> St Laurent-de-la-Prée
We would have liked to follow the coast to the Basque Country, as originally planned, but we have to face the facts: the timing was probably bad. The Atlantic coast is overflowing with tourists, and the idea of sharing our little isolated corners with six other vans and two motorhomes, all stuck one to the others, isn’t really our idea of “life with Marvin”… So, we decided to head back inland for our final stretch to Andorra. But before that, we still managed to spend two nights at the mouth of the Charente, about twenty kilometres south of La Rochelle, in a setting that looks a lot like the Camargue, but with Limousin cows instead of toros, and herons instead of pink flamingos… 😜 The place is really worth the detour! It’s a huge marsh area with canals that separate the different fields where the cows graze peacefully, the mouth of the Charente to the south, and the ocean to the west. So, with all this water everywhere, there are hundreds of birds of all kinds there (and a few hundred nutria too…). We couldn’t ask for a better farewell to the ocean, especially since, strangely enough, we managed to be all alone for 48 hours, with just a few fishermen and walkers. A dream!… So, to enjoy the scenery (and extend our birdwatching lists) we took a long walk along the Charente to Fort Lapointe and the ocean, with Île Madame and Île d’Aix in front of us, and even, in the distance in the mist, Fort Boyard (yes, yes… you can see it in the photos if you look closely… 🤣)
These changing times (conversation with a fisherman)…
27/07/2025 – St Laurent de la Prée -> Cognac
To realise that climate change is much more than a theoretical temperature plot on a graph, nothing better than a conversation with those who experience it firsthand. Our last evening by the ocean allowed us to chat with a fisherman who, the day before, had already given us advice on where to settle so as not to have our wheels in the water when the tide would come in… Between childhood memories, when dolphins were still frequently seen venturing into the mouth of the Charente, or when one had to walk a good distance to reach the water from the parking lot at the tip of Port-des-Barques (where, today, you can practically fish from the window of your car), some anecdotes send shivers down your spine, such as the fact that storm Xynthia, in 2010, completely wiped a coastal village off the map, when the sea level rose so much that the water went over the dike at the foot of which we were installed, completely flooded the marsh on the other side (where we had just been walking), and reached the gates of the village of Saint Laurent-de-la Prée, 2km away inland from there. Île Madame, as for it, was completely submerged, and one could only see the tips of its tallest trees… Xynthia was an exceptional storm (with a tidal coefficient estimated at 184 when the maximum in this area is normally 110-115 during the highest tides), but it is clear that, from our fisherman’s experience, storms have been more and more frequent and stronger in recent years. Equally interesting, it seems that the ancestral know-how of marsh management has been lost between the last generations. Where the ancients emptied or filled the canals according to the different needs of the cattle breeders, the hunters or the fishermen, decisions that seem totally irrational mean that today, the marsh is only supplied with water in winter, even when, as today, the drought in June means that many of these canals only have a few centimetres of water left, that the carp are half out of the water and die due to lack of oxygen or high temperatures, that the coypus or the ducks walk more than they swim, and that the cows move freely between the fields (and even on to the roads) because the canals are empty and they can therefore cross them without any problem… From this discussion, one conclusion seemed clear to our fisherman: the scientists’ calculations are underestimated, and everything that the IPCC predicts for 50 years from now is already happening on the Atlantic coast. The corresponding municipalities even suggest that the island of Ré or that of Oléron will probably no longer be habitable after 2050… It was difficult not to think, while contemplating a last sunset over the marsh of Saint Laurent-de-la-Prée from Marvin’s window, that we were really lucky to have spent two nights alone in the world, surrounded by nature, at the mouth of the Charente, and that this whole ecosystem will probably be very different, if it still exists at all, in a few years…
PD: The pictures are from our “camera trap,” after two days in the marsh…
Lost Illusions…
28/07/2025 – Cognac -> La Rochebeaucourt-et-Argentine
Even though this is where Balzac set his story in “Lost Illusions,” Angoulême is undoubtedly better known for its comic book festival… So that’s where we made our stop of the day, even though it’s not really festival time and visiting a town on a Monday is, after all, a bit depressing (everything is closed!). Angoulême is nonetheless a pretty little town, with its white stone houses and its impressive Romanesque cathedral, also white, with its finely sculpted facade.
Next, we headed to La Rochebeaucourt-et-Argentine, and more precisely the Argentine Plateau, protected for its geological value (it’s a limestone plateau) as well as for its biodiversity (it’s covered in calcareous meadows). This is where the Mareuil stone comes from, which at one time was so highly prized that it was used to build most of the houses in the surrounding villages and, beyond, as far as Angoulême (including the famous cathedral) and even Rochefort and Paris. But lost illusions led, there too, to the limestone market gradually collapsing, and the quarries closed, one after the other. Today, only two remain in operation, and the others have remained there, the last blocks of stone abandoned in the entrance, as if time had suddenly stopped. A project tried to revitalise them a few years ago, taking advantage of the coolness and humidity provided by the stone to grow mushrooms, but the price of mushrooms being what it is, the project was never really profitable and was finally abandoned too… It is quite impressive to find these large rectangular entrances carved into the rock in the middle of the forest, with ferns gradually taking them over. And when one ventures inside, it’s a bit like the Carrières des Lumières in Les Baux-de-Provence, but… without the lights! 😉 And then in the middle of the quarries, also dug into the rock, are some cluzeaux, a term which, in Périgord, designates a shelter dug or carved by man into the rock. The Cluzeaux of Argentine are said to date back to the Middle Ages and contain staircases, shelves, and grain silos on one side, and a mysterious necropolis on the other, which must have served as a cemetery for lepers from a leper colony managed in the early 18th century by the lord of La Rochebeaucourt. For a first day in the Périgord Limousin Regional Park, this is a pretty good start!…
The mysteries of Périgord…
30/07/2025 – La Rochebeaucourt-et-Argentine -> Paussac-et-Saint-Vivien
A (very) short stage today to get closer to Brive-la-Gaillarde, but not too fast so as not to arrive before Saturday, the day of the famous market under the Halles Georges Brassens… 😋
The village of Paussac-et-Saint-Vivien isn’t exactly a major tourist destination, but two enigmatic mentions on Google Maps drew us here: the Peyre dermale and the abandoned village of Vieux Breuil…
The Peyre dermale (or Pierre d’Ermale), falsely considered a dolmen (according to the official website of the Ministry of Culture), is actually a sacrificial stone, but it’s difficult to know more about this strange monolith planted in the middle of a pine forest, as it seems that the monument, although listed on the National Inventory, has been forgotten by historians, so much so that it isn’t even marked or accompanied by an explanatory sign…
A little further into the same forest, one comes across the remains of stone houses overgrown with vegetation. For a moment, we felt a bit like a Spanish explorer in search of El Dorado and stumbling upon the remains of Inca pyramids in the middle of the jungle. This exoticism is illusory though, since the jungle here is nothing more than an oak forest, and the Inca pyramids are houses built by “carriers” (workers in limestone quarries) in a long-forgotten era. It was probably not a large exploitation, since the history of the village of Vieux Breuil seems to have been lost in the meanders of history, and no one can say when or why these quarrymen built this small hamlet of 7 houses by taking advantage of the walls they were cutting into the stone to only have to build three walls (or two in the best case). Contrary to what its name might suggest, Vieux Breuil was never in fact a permanently inhabited village, abandoned in favour of a more beautiful or newer one. It is just a group of semi-troglodyte shelters that quarrymen used periodically, when far from their families, while carrying out an order.
Capital…
31/07/2025 – Paussac-et-Saint-Vivien -> Saint-Front-d’Alemps
The Romans understood it well: the meander of the Isle River surrounding Puy-Saint-Front was a perfect place to establish a pretty little town, filled with monuments and narrow streets. Périgueux is the cultural and tourist capital of the white Périgord, and this capital-like spirit is not new, since in Roman times, ancient Périgueux (in the Vesunna period) was already the Roman capital of the Petrocores. From the Roman era, a large amphitheater remains, saved in extremis from complete destruction when it was used as a warehouse for limestone blocks by a local quarry. But over the years, the monumental heritage of Périgueux has been consolidated with, among other things, the addition of a gigantic cathedral at the top of Puy-Saint-Front, with a multitude of domes somewhat reminiscent of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome… The historic center is a true labyrinth of narrow streets, lined with superb old limestone houses, adorned with a whole bestiary of sculptures. In short, we fell a little under the spell of Périgueux (and I, in particular, of its cathedral), and we spent a good time wandering through its narrow streets, in the relative coolness of the morning… Then we went back north a bit to settle in the forest of Saint-Front-d’Alemps which, undoubtedly because of the heat, gives off a delicious scent of pine trees. Enough to work and rest a little this afternoon before continuing our discovery of the Périgord tomorrow… Incidentally, as a little anecdote, there are 4 Périgords in all: the green Périgord, to the north (named thus by Jules Verne for its forests), the white Périgord, below (whose name comes from its limestone deposit and the various quarries installed there), the purple Périgord, to the southwest (which owes its name to the colour that the vine leaves take on in the autumn), and the black Périgord, to the southeast (whose name is not linked to the truffle, contrary to what one might believe, but rather to the abundance of its very dark holm oak forests)…
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