Ahh the Dordogne. So lovely.

We had a wonderful and relaxing time in the Dordogne. We stayed in a 400 year old stone building belonging to a semi-retired Dutch couple named Karen and Gijs. The property, called Lagrenie, had 2 main buildings: their house and the one we stayed in. The one we were in had 2 separate places. Ours, called Les Girolles, was 3 bedrooms with room for 6 and the other (Les Cèpes) had room for 8. Les Cèpes was empty for the whole week we were there, so we had no one to bother us.

The view out our kitchen and dining room window. It never got old. I think I
took pictures of it every day. The ruins down in the yard are from a previous
building. They were partially attached to ours so presumably the building we
were in used to be larger. Who knows? Down on the right is an old bread oven
set in the stone. The iron door says 1618. 

Karen and Gijs kept a rooster named Henri and 4 hens so we had fresh eggs some mornings. Dunc and Clara went to visit the chickens every day to see how they were doing. Most days the chickens were let out to roam for a little while.

Dunc and Clara with Henri and the ladies.

Karen said she stopped naming the hens after she lost some to a fox. She said
if she named them she'd feel more attached and then feel greater loss
when the fox got in. Henri seems to have no problem with the fox.

On our first full day in Dordogne we got a very lazy start to the day. It felt like such a great place to just hang around and relax. Early afternoon we headed in to a village 20 minutes away called Carsac where the market day was Sundays. We bought some fruit and veggies and a couple of baguettes and staples like that.

There are a number of small villages within 15 or 20 minutes driving time Lagrenie. They all have markets on different days so you can pretty much hit a market every day of you want.

After our tough day of wandering with the chickens and hitting the market, we had a swim (there's a pool) and some dinner and started making plans for the week ahead.