A Stopover in Périgueux

"Why don't we stop in Monflanquin?" suggested my wife.

"OK," I agreed, noticing that the hilltop town looked charming from a distance.

But, the first ominous sign that this was not a good choice presented itself as we approached the town: the main entrance was framed by a fake arch flanked by two fake castle towers. They were so cheesy they looked like something made by the boys in the woodworking shop for the high school's play. There were further signs of this being an imitation Carcassonne (That beautiful walled city has been turned into a tourist trap and cheap souvenir mill.): dozens of tourists dressed in shorts, baseball caps, and cameras were wandering about and the streets near the entrance were lined with parked cars.

Nevertheless, we dutifully found a parking spot and clambered out of the car to "stretch our legs".

"Well, it if is not suitable, we will just have a coffee and go on," said my wife, wisely leaving the door open for a quick escape if we found the place unbearable.

Montflanquin was a "bastide", a fortified town built by the French in the 13th Century as a bulwark against the English who ruled most of France in those days. It sits on a hill top and dominates most of the surrounding valleys. Another castle that was part of the chain of defense, Chateau Biron, can be seen in the distance.

Many of the houses date from medieval times and look it but the town has been greatly refurbished, and there is a sort of Hollywood scenery look about it: heraldry flags hang from windows and there is even a costume shop where you can rent and buy medieval fashions to wear when the town celebrates its Medieval Days. Although there were signs and posters inviting people to those "festivities", to me they were an warning to stay as far away as possible. I don't cotton to milling around in a crowd of people dressed up in silly costumes so they can pretend to be fair knights and damsels of the court.

As I said, the town is built on a hilltop so all of the streets rise to the central square at a steep angle. We trooped up one of the narrow rues and we noticed that several of the houses had a "A Vendre" (For Sale) sign in the window or the door. Once we reached the main square, again several of the shops under the arcades that bordered all four sides of that space, were also for sale.

We sat at a table in the terrace of a café and ordered a couple of "grand créme", the frothy, delicious coffee and cream that only the French know how to make well and which beat the hell out of anything you can buy at Starbucks.

When the waiter brought our coffees, we asked him about the for-sale signs and he confirmed what we suspected: the town was getting very busy and noisy for the real residents and they were selling out at high prices to commercial ventures so they could buy a house in a more restful place.

"So, it gets pretty hectic around here, eh?" I asked.

"Oh, yes!" he confirmed. "And, tonight we have a "marché de nuit" (a night market). It will be very lively with many stands and fireworks at eleven at night."

That was the proverbial nail on the metaphorical coffin. We finished out coffee and skedaddled. But, as we went around the town in the peripheral street that led to the exit, we got a glimpse of the view from the top: it was as grand as advertised. It was obvious that the builders had chosen well: not only was it a formidable defensive position, it was also a beautiful one.

"Well, where to now?" I asked derisively as we drove out of town.

My wife looked at the approaching signage. "Ah, we are close to Périgueux," she exclaimed.

"We are close to a lot of places, my dear. What's so great about Périgueux?"

"I was here for a course one day."

"What kind of a course?"

"Ah, well, it was most interesting. It was for English teachers and we were updated on many subjects and methods for teaching English in our schools."

"You mean, it was a refresher course."

"Yes, yes, that's it."

"And how long did it last, this course?"

"One day."

"One day! Jeeze, what can you do in one day? I would have thought you were here for a week. All that expense and traveling for just one day? No wonder the French school system is going broke."

"Well, we couldn't very well stay away from school for a whole week. The inspector who arranged the course could only stay away from his job for a day, too. Anyway, I stayed in a very nice hotel, the Hotel de France. One eats very well here, too, you know. Périgueux is famous for that."

"Which is why that inspector probably chose it for the so-called course."

We came to a round about where we could continue on our way or turn left and take the road that led to Périgueux. I wanted to go on, my wife wanted to go to Périgueux. We turned left.

Once in the center of the town, we found a convenient paid parking lot. My wife insisted on looking for that "charming" Hotel de France where she had stayed some 20 years back.

"I am sure it was around here some place," she said looking around.

"Things change in twenty years, dear," I said.

"Nevertheless, I am going into that bar to ask," she said resolutely.

"And, I am going to the tourism office to ask where there are hotels available because I am sure that by now everything is pretty well booked up. It is seven o'clock, you know."

"If it is seven, the tourism office will be closed," she said.

"Yes, but they always leave posting in the windows."

She headed for the bar; I headed for the tourism office. As luck would have it, as I reached it and started to look at the postings in the window, the lady who runs the place came out and proceeded to lock the door. I asked her about hotel rooms available in the area and she told me that only the B&B Hotel, the chain of bed and breakfast hotels in France, had informed her that they still had some rooms available in the facilities that were in a near-by town.

I met my wife as she was coming out of the bar. "It is incredible," she said. "The owner of the bar told me that the Hotel de France has disappeared."

"You mean it vanished into thin air?" I asked facetiously.

"No, no, it had been torn down!"

"Why am I not surprised?" I said.

"The man at the bar suggested The Bristol, which is near-by."

"He probably owns stock in the thing," I said. "I saw the prices in the tourism office window. It is three times what we usually pay for a night's stay. Anyway, the lady from the tourism office was just leaving as I looked in the window and she told me the only thing available was at the B&B Hotel in Boulazac, the town we passed on the way here."

"But, that's kilometers away!" my wife protested.

"Eighteen to be exact, but that is our only choice. Everything here in town seems to be booked up. The French are on the move, you know."

Reluctantly, she agreed and we sped off for the B&B. We got a room there. These hotels are the usual modern facility type: everything is computerized, no keys just number codes, rooms are spartan but with the necessary things, WiFi is "free", and even the shampoo in the bathroom is not in individual packages but in a dispenser like the ones you see in a restaurant or bar toilette.

We went to dinner at a Buffalo Grill that was cross the road from the hotel. We had a grand dinner of chile-con-carne, chicken wings, spare ribs, and beer! For desert I had a large ice cream cone.

"Well, one does eat well in Périgueux," I said to my wife triumphantly.

"I guess so," she grumbled.

Tomorrow, "On to Paris!"