Rocamadour, Dordogne Basin, France
Zagan the motorhome is feeling serene, flooded in sunlight with a view out past the white gravel and gleaming motorhomes and over wooded hillsides to the West. A game of petanque between two French couples has finally petered out, the simplest of pastimes but played with such vigour, like Olympic tiddlywinks. They’re now sat around a table, somewhat illegally placed beside a smoking gas BBQ, out in the warmth and light. Technically this constitutes ‘camping activity’, which isn’t allowed on aires, but the way they cook and eat seems so civilised, I can’t imagine anything at all wrong with it.
We’re still in Rocamador. When I say ‘still’, that’s a whole two nights we’ll have stayed put, so it’s not quite like we’ve gone native. The lure of evening sun into the cab drew Ju to roll Zagan across the parking area, around the petanque, but apart from that all is calm in here. The fridge is working cool magic on a litre box of Lidl vin blanc, the inverter is gently humming as it swaps the sun rays for rolling electrons, and a fine wisp of wind is wafting the brittle orange leaves around Zagan’s wheels.
It’s Friday afternoon, and we should be at work, eyeballing the clock throughout lengthy conference calls and wishing the hours to pass. Here the hours can take as long as they like to ease along towards another evening where the only task we have is to suss where to head tomorrow. It’s pretty damned fabulous.
Back to where we are: Rocamador. Between the two of us we’ve come to describe our feelings of a place in terms of the other places we’ve been. A little Mont St Michel-ish maybe? Yeah, perhaps a little Monemasia thrown in, with a tiny bit of Montepluciano? It’s easier than actually trying to relate what we can see.
Rocamador has an extra-ordinary look about it, a chateau landed with a thump atop a cliff falling away into a tree-lined gorge cut by what appears to be a mere splash of a stream. Down below the chateau churches topple upwards towards it, and below them a single road lined with stone buildings. This was once at the epicentre of one of Europe’s great pilgrim routes, back when people travelled out of the desire to gain favour from their god rather than for the sheer fun and celebration of life which drives folks along roads and through the air these days. Having said that, all of us tiptoe and whisper our way around the dark insides of the tiny churches, and I’m fairly sure I’m not the only atheist here along for the ride.
Nah, but for three aged and good-natured nuns, dressed in dark blue and helping each other along umpteen slights of outdoor stairs, we’re mostly here to eyeball this place. It’s quite wondrous to look at, the kind of place where you find yourself trying to capture it all through the lens of a camera, but the preview of the photo popping up each provokes none of the feeling you get from standing and staring.
Not that I let that bother me. We were out last night in the dark, and again before dawn this morning, alone but for each other, snapping away a hundred times. We took our time to walk along the narrow roads, through 700 year old archways, past tat shops, medieval-looking loos, telepheriques and restaurants, carrying Charlie up the great staircases where kings would on occasional knee their way up in a show of reverence. Yesterday we met a French couple with a 2 year old version of Charlie. Retired growers of Champagne (he half-bashfullly showed me a photo of his 11m Concorde with him using a winch to roll a Fiat 500 out the back), they made a great attempt to chat with us about dogs, travelling with a large van in the UK and the nearby caves (like the ones we saw in Greece and Slovenia). I have to admit I was glad when the conversion grew to a close, my lack of French was beginning to twist my head backwards and my eyeballs were starting to hurt.
The plan now is to enjoy this evening’s late October heat (some lucky swines live in this fab climate) and get the map out. Four years ago we hit the Dordogne on our first long trip out in Dave, just a few miles from here. It felt like our trip had started as the landscape was so lovely and again the sun decided to shine. It’ll be a treat to go and relive those particular salad days, before we get going again south. Happy days.
Cheers, Jay
So glad that you love Rocamadour as much as we did…
Hi Julie and Jason,
Just want to let you know that your blog has provided huge inspiration for our own impending adventure. John and I retired a few months ago, we sold our house in Heanor, and since the beginning of September we have been living full-time in our Autotrail MH (which we call the T4rdis) Our original plan had been to be over in France by now, but we had a few ‘humps’, one of which was a beautiful new Granddaughter to await before we could commence our journey proper. We have followed your travels (both this time and last) with much envy, and as I type, we are sitting on the quay side at Newhaven waiting to board the ferry to cross over to Dieppe from where we will, at least partially, follow in your tyre tracks and commence our own travels which will hopefully last for the next few years. Just want to wish you and ourselves an amazing journey. Take care and happy travelling. Lin
Hi Lin and John
Congratu-flipping-lations! That sounds like a most welcome hump to get over, but you’re there anyway. Have a wonderful time, great joy and contentment is out here waiting for you (alongside the usual dose of fear and trepidation to be overcome!). Give us a shout if we end up nearby, would be fab to catch up over a glass of wine.
Cheers! Jay
Rocamadour is always a must for a re-visit if we’re anywhere near, as too is Sarlat and somewhere nearby between Rocamadour and Cahors are grottos with a devil story thrown in, the name escapes me though!
We did a road trip by car a few years ago, drove to Plymouth, ferry to Santander, Pamplona, Zaragoza etc and on the way back stayed in Rocamadour for a couple of nights……really nice wee place…..can still picture the flat valley below our guesthouse with Motorhomes parked up.
Picking up our first MH on Friday near Bristol……a 2004 Hymer B584 …….love the blog guys …….can’t wait to hit the road ourselves ………we live on the Isle of Skye, park anywhere here and fantastic in the summer ……outer Hebrides also amazing ……endless miles of fantastic beaches …..read that you were in Scotland recently but you should check out the north west …….lots of Motorhomes tell us it’s the best for wild camping in Europe !!! Och aye !
Blog Great…….travel by proxy ha ha …..good luck !
We want to visit Dordogne especially rocamadour next week can you recommend where we can overnight we have a large motorhome please
As it’s winter you should be able to park where we did (GPS co-ords are in the blog post). No services, but it is a huge car park next to the town with plenty of other vans there.