Das Perigord Noir

I had heard something about the Dorgogne river before; in my crime series, a policeman searches for murderers around Saint Denis, and now we have ended up there, where there are walnut trees, confit, foie gras and the like as a way of life.

That sounds a bit snobby and stuffy, but I don't mean it that way! It's funny that you can find lots of delicatessen shops in the cities. I've never seen so many cans and things like that with preserved duck in all sorts of different forms before! Joie vivre seems to really be there here, because there were also lots of artisan bakers and lots of other things that I don't know from Toulouse or the north.

The main attraction for us was Lascaux, i.e. clay brick, only in Germany this means the caves of Lascaux. The originals can no longer be viewed because in the mid-1960s it was discovered that the paintings were suffering greatly from the influx of visitors. So a fake cave was built that today still gives visitors an impression of the original. In my eyes, the artist, who spent 6 years repainting, has performed a miracle because the smallest details are visible, and the tour showed me things in the drawings that I would never have recognized or discovered myself.

The caves were discovered by a teenager in 1940 when Marcel was out with his dog and the dog disappeared into a hole and didn't come back. That was the beginning. The boy actually just wanted to follow his dog and then he stumbled into something that, according to legend, might contain a treasure! But the treasure hunt was marked by a completely different treasure. When Marcel shined his light on the cave ceiling on a subsequent visit, he illuminated the Sistine Chapel of the Stone Age.

They are wonderful pictures, the artists put some thought into each color pigment, the animals almost seem to move in the torchlight, it was magical!

Then, of course, we also traced the Middle Ages, because Commarque Castle was featured in my last crime novel. Since it is also dog-friendly, Loki had to prove his good behavior right away, and he did a really good job.

There were also some caves and finds from the Stone Age near the castle, a small painting, etc., which shows that the river valley here was also a good place of retreat for Stone Age people. I can understand it; if there were so many walnut trees back then, it was a great source of supplies. (I doubt that there were that many back then, but the hunters and gatherers certainly knew what they were doing.)

LesEyiers also has finds and caves that we didn't visit, we want to come back!

We then experienced and tested the advantages of the Perigord to perfection in a successful restaurant visit, and the number of hiking trails etc. also says that we will definitely come back there again!