months in what has variously been called self-isolation or confinement (latter to be said with a French accent) caused by the Covid 19 pandemic. We have been extremely lucky to be caught in our house in France at the beginning of that period and have used the time to do house and garden jobs, most of which were not foreseen when we bought the house. However, the list of jobs is not getting any smaller as all we do in between is make up new ones, so as we can now travel its time to fire up Horatio and take a break.
That inevitably entailed a few more jobs as he hasn’t been moved since last September’s excursion to check out the ski region in the Pyrenees. So a good scrub up and 452 trips up and down the stairs to load, well, what needs loading – always seems crazy on the short trips as apart from clothes its nearly the same for 4 days as 4 months!
Moving on – which we did yesterday – we took a short drive to Collonges-la-Rouge which is at the edge of the Massif Central, and in the upper Dordogne valley although nowhere near the river. The clue is in the name – its very red. All the houses are built from the local red sandstone, much darker than the yellow version we see all around our part of the Dordogne, giving the place a fairy-tale but also slightly claustrophobic feel. Its pretty but a tourist trap, most of the buildings are either shops with local food or what we call knicky-knackies, or restaurants. Bien sur, nous sommes en France !
One of the squares
Some turrets
Another turret
Knicky-knackies!
A splash of colour
It didn’t take long to wander around as we didn’t want to shop, but we did find the Castel de Vassinhac at the edge of the village, which only recently opened to the public for the first time after a comprehensive restoration, which is still continuing at one end. This was guild in the 16th Century by the then governor of the Viscounty of Turenne, which includes Collonges. The village itself dates back to the 8th Century, and was built by the local wine growers. Sadly this is one of the areas which had to be cleared and replanted with other vegetation following the phylloxera catastrophe.
Castel de Vassinhac
Back to the Castel. One of the current owning family, Monsieur Dueymes, met us at the entrance and gave us a quick overview, plus a guide in English to ensure we didn’t miss anything. There are just a few rooms, mostly decorated in the Louis XIII period with a few later additions. The red stone is exposed on most of the interior walls and in the dining room a waxed red flagstone floor. To B’s delight there was a spiral staircase, albeit small in height though made up for with very wide steps.
Louis XIII dining room
A short wide climb
The dungeon – sorry, cellar
A nice interlude, I would recommend visiting if passing that way – as you can see you do come away with some very pretty photos. Even the gates and cars matched the colour scheme……
