Day 27 – Hautefort castle

It is a drizzly hazy morning. Sue takes off for the boulangerie to get fresh bread while Alan and I have a lazy time back at the farmhouse. She comes back all excited with tales of the miniature cyclamens covering a lawn up the road.

We visit our castle, which is just over a 1km away. There is hardly a soul around and it wonderful to have the place to ourselves. There appears to be only one attendant inside the whole castle. The rooms are lavishly decorated and the view of the manicured gardens, parklands and village below are superb. We have to thank for the restoration of the castle, parts of which date back to the middle ages, the Baron and Baroness de Bastard.


Afterwards we visit the Information Centre and Museum of Medicine, which contains a few instruments of dental torture from a couple of centuries ago.

Back at the farmhouse we have a late lunch, mainly consisting of all the things we bought at the Sarlat markets yesterday – a walnut and duck salami, a wonderful pungent cheese, olives, a strangely-shaped tomato and greens on fresh bread.


Sue and I wander country lane ways eating walnuts from the ground and apples from overhanging trees. Back at the farmhouse we put the fire on and find a music station on the radio.


Over to Sue for a description of dinner:


"We decide to eat in so head off to the local chacturie to purchase some veal, locally bottled haricot beans in sauce, some onion soup and plums for dessert.


“Home to prepare the food, while accompanied by a gin and tonic. The pot is left simmering on the stove while we relax in the spa bath – Alan plunging twice into the cold swimming pool.


“Although not quite the standard of the previous evening the meal is still pretty darn good and accompanied by another bottle of local red.”