The Dordogne

I was so excited because we were going to the Dordogne, which is about six hours away from my house in Mormoiron. We took off early in the morning for Roquefort, which is famous for its blue cheese. When we arrived we went into one of the best Roquefort cheese stores, Papillon. We went on a tour through the cellars where they mature the cheese. To make Roquefort cheese, they get a special loaf of Roquefort bread and they bake it until it burns on the outside. They then leave the bread in the cellars to collect mould. They then scrape the mould in the form of penicillin, off the bread. When they have done this, they test the penicillin to make sure that it's the special Roquefort penicillin. Meanwhile the ewes of the valley are milked.They sprinkle the penicillin over the processed sheep's milk curd. The final cheese disk is then placed in the caves, at a constant thirteen degrees celsius, to mature for a period of ninety to two hundred and forty days. It has been regarded as a special cheese for hundreds of years. For example, in 1411 Charles VI liked it so much that the cellars that stored Roquefort cheese were turned into a protected landmark. We saw a map on the tour that showed the area where you can call your cheese Roquefort. It was only 2km long and 300 metres wide! At the end of tour when we came out of the cave, we had a taste of the blue cheese. It was delicious, so we bought a large piece. When we left Roquefort, we bought a loaf of bread and sat at a lookout whilst eating the cheese and bread with enthusiasm!

After the Roquefort cheese visit, we drove to Le Viaduc de Millau. This bridge crosses the valley of the river Tarn and is 2460m long and 245m metres high. The bridge is thirty metres taller than the Eiffel Tower and thirty seven metres shorter than the Empire State Building. We exited off the highway, after we had crossed the bridge, and stopped at an information centre. From there we hiked up to a look-out on the hill where we looked at the bridge itself! It was amazing! There were white poles coming out of the top of the bridge and thick suspension cords slanted towards the base of the bridge.

We arrived in the Dordogne later that night where we were greeted by friends and a fantastic dinner of spaghetti carbonara. We stayed in the town of Thenon.

The next morning we went to Sarlat which is a town close to Thenon. There were huge markets on with products ranging from food to art. I bought myself some churros which are straight shaped doughnuts. I scoffed the whole bag! They were fantastic. We were walking along when we approached a square were a crowd was gathered. We pushed our way to the front and saw that a man was manipulating a soft snake over his hand. It looked quite amazing! We bought our own and were soon doing the same thing. The trick is that there is a see-through string connected to your waist and you could manipulate the snake without others seeing! Ivy and I

played with them all the way home.

That afternoon we went to the River Dordogne were we sat and tore a hot chicken to pieces with a bread stick. Ivy and I dipped our feet in the water and fed the ducks while Mum and Dad bought boat tickets for a tour on the river. We hopped on to the boat and left with a loud ring from the boat's bell. As we floated along the river we saw four châteaus and a bridge built in Roman times. The sun was baking down on everyone, so the staff wound out sun-shades.

The next day was very exciting with a trip to La Roque Saint-Christophe. It is a huge rock face, one kilometre long and eighty metres high, were people used to live in indentations in the rock face. People lived there from fifty-five thousand years ago until the Religious wars in the fifteen hundreds, when a lot of it was destroyed. We walked along, and inside the rock exploring the different parts of the village. My favourite part was seeing the "squirrel lifter" operate. A man got inside a wheel and ran! He looked like a guinea pig on an exercise wheel! As he ran, a load was lifted up and when he ran the other way, it went back down. The sight is unique because of its size, its age and the length of its occupation by man.

After that, we drove to "Les Jardins de Marqueyssac" which was an amazing château with gardens and hedges fashioned into swirls and shapes. We went for a walk to the peak of the gardens where there was a beautiful view over the Dordogne valley. Ivy and I enjoyed the numerous playgrounds while Mum and Dad strolled along the paths together. I really enjoyed the maze where Ivy and I had races in and out of it. When we got back to the start of the walk we saw a man carving things out of wood! He made spin-tops, cups and more. I had a vanilla and caramel ice-cream with hot coffee and cream drizzled over it with Ivy. It was absolutely delicious!

The next day was the last, but the most exciting day of all the days we spent in the Dordogne. We went to the Gauffre de Padirac. It is a huge cave system and crater which was formed by the collapse of a cave. The huge crater measures thirty five metres wide and one hundred and three metres deep. There were two lifts from the surface to the bottom of the crater. From the bottom of the lifts, we walked eight hundred metres into the cave where there were boats waiting for us. Our guide paddled our gondola across the water and told us about the caves. My favourite bit was when he rocked the boat. At the end of the boat ride, we were taken on a tour in the caves. There were quite a few stalactites and stalagmites and the "Grand Cathedral" was spectacular. We walked one kilometres on the bottom and we climbed up four hundred and sixty five steps to get back to the base. The cave was discovered in eighteen ninety and was opened nine years later. They have explored twenty kilometres of the caves and nine kilometres in they found human, mammoth and cave bear remains!

Au Revoir