Back to square one…

It had to happen one day (as we all know, all good things must come to an end…), and even though we added a few stops to really enjoy the Périgord, we had fewer and fewer kilometres left to reach Andorra… So there we are, done! The circle is complete…

General statistics of the adventure so far…

Total Distance (km)

Gasoil (L)

Countries Visited

11.826 km

1.854 L

The tour of Périgord…

1-2/08/2025 – Saint-Front-d’Alemps -> Puy de Pauliac

After our visit of Périgueux, we had one more day to discover some of the “most beautiful villages in France” (which all seem to be around here, by the way… 🤔) before Saturday rolled around and we could finally arrive in Brive-la-Gaillarde for its famous Saturday market… So we began our tour of the Périgord with the small medieval village of Saint Robert, its narrow streets and stone houses, its impressive church whose gardens offer a magnificent panorama of the surroundings, and its bakery where we found the best baguette we’ve eaten in a long time!…

Then we headed to Le Saillant, a small hamlet with stone houses famous for its small chapel, the only monument in France to be included on the national list for a work of modern art, and for a good reason: all the chapel’s stained-glass windows were created by Marc Chagall between 1978 and 1982.

Finally, we ended our tour at the Pans de Travassac, an astonishing slate quarry (the last one still in operation in France) which, due to various geological pressures, has “grown” vertically, while almost all other slate deposits are generally more or less horizontal. The exploited and unexploited parts of the quarry have formed a strange landscape, like something out of the movie Avatar, with immense vertical slate slabs with smooth walls, on which only a few mosses can barely cling…

Finally, after a night at the top of the Puy de Pauliac, right next to its dolmen, we finally arrived in Brive, heading straight for the Halles George Brassens for THE most famous market in the region. Well, since the market disappointed us a little, we’ll explain why the Brive market is named after George Brassens. According to the Brive Tourist Office, in his song Hécatombe, Brassens evokes a fight at the Brive-la-Gaillarde market that turned ugly. A bad memory from his time in Brive? Looking for a rhyme with “Gaillarde”? The answer went away with George’s moustache…

Heading South…

3/08/2025 – Puy de Pauliac -> Braguelonne-en-Quercy

After Brive, all we had to do was head south again, but before leaving the Périgord, something prompted us to take a detour to Sarlat, and… it was a very good intuition! We discovered a small, extremely well-preserved medieval town, where we could have spent an entire day wandering the old streets, noses in the air, mouths agape, admiring the various details of each sculpture or window. Sarlat is the self-proclaimed capital of foie gras, and the old church of Sainte Marie, converted into a covered market by Jean Nouvel, offers the perfect setting to discover all that can be done with a duck or a goose, all that can be made with walnuts, and other Périgord specialties. After a lunch break on the banks of the Céou River in Saint-Germain-du-Bel-Air, we continued our journey to Cahors, its cathedral and Valentré Bridge, before settling down not far from the Malbec vineyards, in the shade of an oak tree (because the temperatures have been rising drastically these last few days)…

Departure point…

4-5/08/2025 – Braguelonne-en-Quercy -> Pal, Andorre

We could have continued adding stops, touring the Quercy region as we did in the Périgord, but everything must come to an end, and given that the temperatures were getting hotter and hotter, with no sign of any respite on the horizon, we finally decided to head back towards the Pyrenees and Andorra. One last night in Labécède-en-Lauragais, on this last tip of the Montagne Noire which offers a 360º view with the plains of Toulouse and Castres on one side, and the silhouette of the Pyrenees on the other, with still some traces of snow on certain peaks. The perfect stop to close this adventure, before going the last kilometres to the border and starting the next step: the cleaning! 😜 All that remains is for us to leave the months of August and September to the tourists, and take advantage of this to plan our next adventure, which obviously won’t take long!… 😁 See you soon for the full summary…

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– Always travel on public ways and respect the signs.
– Limit noise and interfere as little as possible with wildlife.
– Respect the other users.
– Leave rocks, plants and other natural features as you found them and respect historic sites.
– Take your waste with you and throw it into the appropriate containers, in the nearest village.
– Do not camp inside protected areas and do not make any fires.