Quite a few of you have asked about my birthday of 2 chateaus, so here we go.
This was a mix of plan ahead and winging the day. I had booked Chateau de Monrecour for dinner, bed and breakfast some weeks back as we had been past it travelling from Beynac to St. Cyprien along the Dordogne Valley several times and felt it needed to be properly assessed 😉
As I had asked B for a surprise, he decided that we would visit another chateau in the morning, so off we went in Hercules to the Chateau des Milandes, which is on the other side of the river and famous for belonging to Josephine Baker – an amazing lady who started life as a penniless coloured singer and dancer in Missouri and ended up being recruited to the stage in Paris, becoming famous in the (infamous!) Folie Bergère, and that was just the start.
Having glimpsed it from the river (canoe) and road, it was a lovely surprise to be going there, and despite being high season the queue was short. We also benefitted (this was planned, surprisingly for B!) by arriving when there was a bird of prey demonstration in progress, keeping a lot of visitors in the garden.
I will not go into chapter and verse here as some of you have already visited and others may like to. The chateau is lovely and Josephine’s story – uplifting, inspiring and sometimes sad, is worth delving into.
Many of the rooms in the chateau are set out as museum to different parts of her life and the audio guides give a very good commentary so this is now on our list of recommendations for our long-awaited family and friends’ visits.
We finished in the gardens, which includes an aviary of owls, most large and all still awake giving us that quizzical look they are so good at. There is also a restaurant there but the queue for that was long and in full sunshine and the courtyard very warm to say the least, so we crossed the river and went to Beynac, to a café by the river, hoping for a breeze !
Here are a few pictures of Beynac pinched from a visit a few days before, just to remind you all what it looks like.
From there it was off to our chateau for the night – Chateau Monrecour. The original “chateau” was built by the Beynac family as somewhere more civilised to live than their medieval fortress and looked more like a large house. It was later used for the vineyard workers and was updated and remodelled in the early 20th Century to the Neo-Renaissance style you see now.
Our room was on the ground floor, triple aspect with its own private terrace area. As with most of these older buildings refurbished by the French, as opposed to what we see our Brit compatriots doing on the telly, the interior is basically modern. Our 4 poster was not old, though some of the other furniture definitely was. All original wall and ceiling features are missing – cornices, big skirting boards, panels and ceiling roses, and the bathroom is completely modern though nicely done with limestone tiled floor and walls.
However, they have retained a salon on the first floor and the ground floor chapel which have all the features from the remodelling. Both have wood panelling purchased from the monastery Vauclaire in Montpon-Menesterol and you are encouraged to take a look. The salon has books and games available so looks like the place to be in the winter when the pool is no longer beckoning as it did for us.
The full history of this lovely building is on their website for anyone who is interested in more details – and by the way, as B guessed, Monrecour means my respite or my retreat….
Dinner was on a terrace next to the restaurant outbuilding (though the breakfast terrace has a better view). For me the food was exquisite – B is less fond of fancy stuff, but his was good too, and he had the same dessert and agreed with me on that one. So, I don’t usually do this, but I will describe the meal, as I know some of you are interested in the details… 😉
I was a bit delinquent for this food part of the blog and forgot to photograph the amuse-bouches we got with our aperos – a china spoonful of tzatziki, toast with rillettes of cod and a little glass of gazpacho with cream. Following that we got a bowl of artichoke vichysoise which was also missed until the bowl was nearly empty (you can see it in the photo of B!).
Then I got my act together (partially) and snapped my dill-marinated local trout starter which came with samphire and various coloured dollops, the green being avocado. The problem is by the time the food turns up I have usually forgotten half of the description – doh – and I failed to capture B’s foie gras starter until it was a bit messed up.
Moving on, and for the main I had turbot with a mix of field mushrooms, girolles (chanterelles to us Brits) and cepes (porcini to the Italians and some with chef tendencies!). The sauce was flavoured by these and something yummy happened to the skin. Best fish dish ever.
B had lamb filet with more various dollops (I like that word) and the only identifiable veg being a larger dollop of ratatouille (not his favourite).
Dessert was raspberries with 3 baby macaroons, an alcoholic sorbet and – you’ve seen the photo and guessed – even more dollops of unknown but very tasty provenance.
We had a notably good bottle of Crozes Hermitage (ringing the changes rather than going local again, and yes I know I had fish but I like red wine). We followed that with a nice digestive on our private terrace and went to bed with that warm, fuzzy, well fed feeling!
In the morning I woke up early enough to see balloons over the valley from our terrace and one landed just next to the Chateau des Milandes 🙂
