The St Front cathedral here in Perigueux dominates the east end of town, and since that is where we are starting, it dominates the first photos of the day.
Our plan was to cross the river in front of the hotel and to hop on the voie verte. This follows the curve of the river around to the southwest side of town, from which we could easily access the Gallo-Roman sites. Our tourist map listed eight of these, and naturally we wanted to tick off each one.
Here we are over the bridge and looking back at the hotel and cathedral. The photo also show that guard house, and on this side of the river there is an explanatory sign.
This claims the building is 13th century and served for storage and as a guard house. It debunks the notion that it was a mill, saying that the actual mill was down the river and was destroyed in 1860. Too much information?
Just over the "backup" bridge which we were forced to find because of the blocked bike path, a piece of graffiti seemed very appropriate, with an expression that in modern France could replace "Liberté, égalité, fraternité"!
We quite quickly fell upon the Roman sites. In the tourist map these were circled with a thick red line, drawn on a greyed out background of the city streets. This gave the impression that the sites could be sitting in a sort of park, and that we would see them all sitting there. No such thing. Rather the sites were closely surrounded by the built up modern city, and in the case of one (the Roman gate) we were not even sure we were looking at the actual thing, vs a bunch of doctors' offices.
Let's take a spin around the sites and see what you think. We ourselves were slightly underwhelmed, perhaps because we had to watch out for too much traffic while finding the various ruins.
There was an arena here in the first century. The evidence is in pieces of wall around the perimeter, and the very fact that the street around is oval. Inside the oval, today, is a garden/park.
The Barriere house is a complex of at least two stately buildings, and it has parts that were built in the 12th century on a 4th century base. The whole thing was burned in 1577 by the Protestants in the Wars of Religion.
Beside the tower there is a museum comprised of a large roof over the ruins of, I think, the temple that was associated with the tower. We only peeked in, with the camera.
Keith KleinHi,
Inside, there is a very well preserved mosaic pavement, which is fascinating for those who like all things Roman, like Sue and me. Reply to this comment 7 months ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Keith KleinWe, especially Dodie, enjoy poking around the ruins, but we were too early to go in. Maybe next time through. Reply to this comment 7 months ago
Keith KleinNot Roman, eighteenth century or later, judging by the masonry. The « real » Porte romaine is in ruins in a garden, the arch is long gone and only a grassy passage between two dilapidated stone walls remains. Reply to this comment 7 months ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Keith KleinDespite the identifying number at this location on the map, this definitely did not look Roman to us. Reply to this comment 7 months ago
Finally the church of Saint Etienne. We did not actually go in for a look. This was the official cathedral in 1669, when St Front was the bishop. The building itself is 11th century. It lost some bits, including the tower during the Protestant occupation of 1575-1577.
To leave Perigueux and head south west, generally toward Bergera, Dodie did some earnest looking for some very quiet roads. But unfortunately these could not be found. Instead we spent the day riding the dreaded dotted line. When you are doing this, you have to concentrate on holding a straight line, and you cane not spend much time looking at scenery. You also have to fend off the noise of cars, to avoid getting a headache.
This driver is pulling out nicely, but perhaps I scared him with my camera.
The first round of traffic fighting ended at Notre Dame de Sarilhac, where we finally came to a short bit of bikeway. We had just passed a nice Super U and a new housing development, so I surmised the bikeway was made to join the two. Based on that I did not expect the safe ride to last long, and I was right. Still, this did allow our blood pressures to drop a bit.
The little town, on the way to Bergerac, where Dodie had found a spot for us to stay, was just off the highway and was more like a cluster of buildings than a town per se. Still there is a bakery and a little grocery, and these mean a lot. The buildings here are rather special, representing a return to the stone construction, that had not been jumping out at us during the day today. And there is even a little chateau, so it's quite a unique place.
We usually prefer regular hotels, but the BnB "Le Potager" was really beautiful, with its several rooms in a former stone barn. One room had had cows, one pigs, and ours had been for the farm worker. All are now beautifully restored and appointed.
Phillippe explained to us that this area used to grow tobacco, a type he called "brown". This, he said, was a strong one, such as used in Galois cigarettes. The building he was showing us had been used for drying, and the vents he was operating controlled the flow of air. If we understood correctly, some kind of government regulation wiped out the small producer of brown tobacco and "white" Virginia tobacco was substituted and controlled by a large multinational.
Technical point of interest: The internet was not working here today, something about a project to install fibre optic cable. So ok, I could still do the blog using mobile data, right? Not quite. The walls of our room are four feet thick. Yes four feet. No wimpy signals from Orange are getting in here! What to do? I set my phone on the outside of the window ledge, connecting it to charging power with, yes, four feet of cable. From there the phone set up a hotspot and broadcast it presumably back through the window, where my laptop, that also has a booster antenna, picked up the signal. That's how you were able to get today's fascinating report before I forgot what happened!
Today's ride: 41 km (25 miles) Total: 2,154 km (1,338 miles)
