Périgord paddling

By Charles Jacobs

updated 5:49 p.m. ET March 29, 2006

So you’re an old pro at the sport. You can make your canoe skim through the rocks, safely run a waterfall, shoot the roughest rapids. But here’s one trick you’ve probably never tried. On a trip to southwest France, we morphed our canoes into time machines, and spanned 370 centuries in just 12 days, paddling inn-to-inn on four rivers.

We were in the Périgord, a region best known to Americans as the Dordogne, where the riverbanks have witnessed 37,000 years of human advancement. Because waterways have been key to life in this region since prehistoric times, there is no better way to tour the Dordogne. Each river has a very different story to tell, beginning with the Vézére, where Cro-Magnon man and his predecessors chose the towering limestone cliffs for their cave homes, bequeathing artifacts, sculptures, and amazingly well preserved cave art to modern-day archaeologists and tourists. Two-thirds of the 120 or so art-decorated prehistoric caves in the world are found right here.

The banks of the Lot and Dordogne Rivers provide a panoramic history of life and culture dating back to the Middle Ages. Imposing forts and chateaux, high atop the cliffs, protect beautifully preserved medieval villages that seem to climb, one house on top of another, up the sheer limestone walls that girdle the rivers. The sprightly Célé, winding through farmland and forest, reveals contemporary Périgord, the pastoral bread and wine basket, source of fine vintages and veggies, the world’s primary supplier of foie gras.

On our very first afternoon, we fell inevitably in love with this land of geese, ducks, cheese, truffles, walnuts, and superb wine. Our group of 12 gathered on the grassy riverbank at St. Leon sur Vézére with our leaders, Jim Walker and Carolyn Parker, from BattenKill Canoe in Arlington, Vermont. We were mesmerized by the rippling reflections of the ninth century church in the gentle waters of the Vézére and the shimmering of filmy willows that characterize this sleepy hamlet.

We soon settled into the leisurely pace of the Vézére as we paddled toward Les Eyzies de Tayac, where Cro-Magnon’s remains were discovered in the late 19th century. A mighty statue of Cro-Magnon man greeted us as we trudged from the riverbank to our hotel, soaked to the skin by an inescapable cloudburst. It is a short walk from the town center is the Grotte de Font-de-Gaume, home to a remarkable variety of cave paintings.

Robert Dunn A medieval chateau towers above the Dordogne River.

It is important to get there early. The dry interior of the cave helps to preserve the 80 bison and human figures, and excessive exposure to human breath can severely harm these paintings, requiring the authorities to restrict the number of visitors to just 200 per day.

A huge fortress and majestic chateau tower over Rocamadour, our next stop. They were designed centuries ago to police the river and protect the vertical cliff-side village far below. Built into the bluff midway between the castle and the town is the Sanctuary of Notre Dame, where the Black Virgin still wears her jeweled silver crown in the Chapelle de la Vierge Noire, a key pilgrimage destination during the 11th and 12th centuries. It was here that repentant sinners were forced to climb on bleeding knees up the 216 steps of the Via Sancta to reach the seven churches, basilicas, and chapels adjoining Notre Dame. Today ascenseurs (elevators) are there to carry us up, even if we have sinned.

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The next evening, a bit tired and stiff after eight hours of effort on our longest river day, we finally beached at Marcilhac, a tiny farming hamlet of such charm it made every stroke worthwhile. With a population of 156, it is actually one of the larger villages in the Célé Valley. Its original Benedictine abbey was pillaged in the Hundred Years War, rebuilt in Gothic style, and then ravaged by Protestants in the Wars of Religion. A walk through the badly battered Romanesque courtyard graphically illustrates the turmoil that racked this region in post-Medieval times.

Our misgivings as we lined our canoes above the old 12-foot-high milldam the next morning quickly faded as we concentrated on a strategy for negotiating the sluice. Not a single canoe dumped in the swirling waters at the base, an achievement that allowed us to graduate to master canoeists—at least in our own minds.

Later in the day, we feasted on cabecou (sharp local goat cheese) and foie gras, spread on peasant bread with freshly picked tomatoes. Our dining table was a canoe turned upside down on the riverbank and covered with a festive red-and-white tablecloth.

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