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The region also has many cultural activities to offer its guests.
These include historical French Chateaux, Museums, Bastide Towns and
great cities where shopping, dining and golfing can be experienced.
Chateaux
Chateau de Lanquais
Towers, covered
ways and machicolations bear witness to Lanquais’ past as a powerful
fortress during the Hundred Years War. As a symbol of Grandeur and
might, a magnificent Renaissance Palace was added by the same
craftsmen who built the Louvre, in Paris.
During your visit you
will witness the daily lives of Lanquais’ past inhabitants. Discover
their apartments, furnished and decorated with fireplaces in
sculptured stone, the old kitchens and the armory.
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Chateau de Hautefort
Located
in the northeastern part of Dordogne, the department that borders on
Corrèze and Haute-Vienne, this massive château was built upon an
ancient Roman camp, dominating a magnificent region, as a hinge
between Limousin and Aquitaine. During the XIIth century, it was the
stake of rivalry between the famous troubadour Bertran de Born and his
brother Constantin for the succession to King of England Henry II
Plantagenêt.
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Chateau
de Losse
Situated 5km from Montignac Lascaux, in the direction of Les Eyzies,
the Losse Château dominates the Vézère valley. Enclosed by walls and
surrounded by deep moats, the medieval fortress, built on a cliff
above the river, was replaced by a pleasure château in 1575. On the side, facing
the field, the main courtyard is accessed by a bridge and the
fortified chatelet. The chatelet is one of the largest constructions
of its kind in Southwest.
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Chateau
de Castelnaud
Castelnaud's feudal castle, erected on top of a rocky spur, offers
an amazingly beautiful panorama over the Dordogne and Ceou valleys.
The main building of this military edifice houses the Museum of
Medieval Warfare: a collection of arms and armors (dating back the
XIIIrd to XVIIth centuries), furniture (dating back the XIVth
century), films, and life-size recreated siege machineries, enabling
you to better understand or discover medieval warfare.
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Chateau de
Chabans
Nestling between Les Eyzies and Montignac, in the very heart of the
protected site of Côte de Jord overlooking the Valley of the Vézère,
amidst a beautiful forest of oaks, chestnut trees and "truffières"
(truffleyards), Chabans cannot be seen from the road. Its rooms give
shelter to beautiful antique furniture, XV to XIX century stained
glass windows and superb examples of the ancient arts of embroidery
and tapestry.
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The
Hanging Gardens of Marqueyssac
Dordogne's belvedère, located 9 km from Sarlat classified as a
Historical Monument. Classified as a Historical Monument,
Marqueyssac's 22-hectare park and XVIIIth century château offer more
than 6 kilometers of shaded strolling alleys edged by 150,000
hand-trimmed boxes, and adorned with panoramic viewpoints, rockeries,
waterfalls and natural sceneries. From the Belvedere hanging over the
valley, you will take in the plain at a glance: the feudal fortress of
Beynac, the châteaux of Fayrac and Castelnaud, the fortified villages
of La Roque-Gageac and Domme. Marqueyssac is undoubtedly the best
starting point for your visit of Périgord.
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Feudal Castle of Beynac
An
open site must not, however, mean disrespect for the past. This is the
difficult task that all those in charge of a historical site must
fulfil. May those who open their homes make them hospitable and living
so that visitors do not find them strange, but feel, across time the
evocative power of every stone.
During the 12th, 13th, and 14th Centuries this fortress was French
during a certain period, then English, and again French in 1453.
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Museums
The
Bergerac Tobacco Museum
It was founded in 1950, but since then, has been reorganized and is
housed in the beautiful building ‘La Maison Peyrarede’. This is a fine
example of Renaissance and classical architecture. The cultural
Tobacco history is developed in four exhibition rooms. The first room
begins with the use and functions of tobacco in the pre-Colombian
America leading through to the fourth room that focuses on the
manufacturing techniques of smoking objects in history and throughout
the world.
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Bergerac Wine Rooms
Bergerac’s ‘Maison du Vin’ (Wine Rooms) is
established in the sixteenth-century Récollects Cloisters which were
built on twelfth-century foundations. Here, the visitor can learn
about the twelve regional Appellations d’Origines Contrôlées (
Controlled Appellation : the state control and designation of
geographically based names) before heading off to visit the vineyards
themselves. In the summer there are often art exhibitions in the
Cloisters and concerts in the evenings.
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Le
Moulin de la Rouzique
The first mill of Couze goes up at the beginning of XVème century.
There was to fifteen mills in activity on the site of Couze considered
in France like abroad. The paper makers of Couze manufactured the
famous paper of Holland, which carried in filigree the weapons of
Amsterdam.
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Museum of the Velocipede
This museum (1st
collection in the world) proposes an educational goal of walk and
original to you where all the history of the vélocipédie, Draisienne
(1817) to the Bicycle (1840), while passing through Large Bi and the
Small Queen will be told to you.
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Pomport Museum of Old Cars
The fifteenth-century Château de
Sanxet is the beautiful home of twenty three cars, some of which are
unique models. The château produces its own wine; the visitor can
taste the wine and visit the underground, fourteenth-century winery.
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Bergerac Museum of River
Transport
Established in a former barrel
warehouse on the quay, the museum tells the story of the river from
prehistoric pirogues to the latest in dredging barges. The visitor
will find out about the lives of those who worked on and around the
river and the goods they transported, as well as the river faun and
flora and the wine that was for so long intimately linked to the
river.
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Eymet Archaeological Museum
In the castle courtyard the keep
has three floors of prehistoric artefacts and historical documents.
Tools, clothes, coins etc. retrace local history throughout the ages..
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Museum
of Chartrons
In the building of a Royal Broker of the Town of Bordeaux at the
XVIIIème century discover...
Arched cellars built in 1720 pointing out the breeding of the wine
out of barrels...
And of the wine storehouses, which present several pilot
collections of the radiation of the wines of Bordeaux in the World.
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Vinorama of Bordeaux
Realized thanks
to the participation of artists and craftsmen of Bordeaux the Vinorama
recalls key moments of the history of the wine of Bordeaux since the
Gallo-Roman time until the 19th century. The presentation, made in the
form of scenes reconstituted with 75 dressed up wax characters, is
accompanied by a wiring for sound in French, English, German and
Japanese.
The first part of Vinorama includes thirteen tables representing of
the key elements of the history of Bordeaux on a surface of
approximately 600 m2. The Vinorama is equipped with a room of tasting.
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Ecomusee of the Vine and the Wine
In one of the last
typical "houses of vine grower" of Bordeaux, this museum exposes a
collection of 500 tools of XVIIIe and XIXe century gathered by
impassioned collectors.
It is a museum with touching, feeling and to taste where small and
large will have fun to discover the marks of the work of the man
printed on the tools of the vine growers.
You
are able to discover the spirit of the soil, the skill of the wet
coopers, the secrecies of the chemists of the wine and the know-how of
the Masters of accurately transmitted wine storehouse from generation
to generation.
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Bastides (Walled
& Fortified Towns)
Eymet
(12 km)
Eymet opens its unique countryside to the admirers of old stone
buildings, to gourmets and nature lovers. A countryside made up of a
‘community of communes’, which has managed to maintain its humanity
and quality local produce,
together with a peaceful and harmonious landscape which beckons you to
travel and discover and rich and varied heritage.
The presence of the Middle Ages is greatly in
evidence :
• The market square, surrounded by houses built above the arcades, has
recently been restored and medieval timber frame homes alternate with
stone buildings.
• A few vestiges of the château remain such as the imposing
thirteenth-century keep complete with turret and high defensive walls.
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Libourne
Ancient bastide, port, wine growing center on Dordogne and river
isles.
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Perigueux
Ancient city of the river isle. Located there is Saint Etienne
Church, Saint Front Cathedral and Gallo romain ruins.
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Puguilhem
Situated only 2 miles from Acabanes. Originally
there was a castle in this small village which, along with the
surrounding land, was ceded to the King of England in 1265 in exchange
for the construction of a bastide outside the castle, it was duly
founded in the name of St Eulalie de Puyguilhem. The bastide lived
through several agitated periods during the fourteenth-century wars
but, despite this, remained of relatively little importance. The
entrance to the town walls survives in the village square and a little
further away are the ruins of a tower. There is also a castle which
dates from a later period than the bastide.
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Monpazier
The bastide of Monpazier is a
National Heritage Site (Grand Site National) and, as well as being the
best preserved bastide in the Dordogne, it is considered the most
typical example of a bastide in the entire south-west of France.
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Montpon-Menesterol
From hare to woodcock, from deer to wild boar, from fish-filled
pools to migratory birds, crepes to chestnuts, from houses in daub to
Trappist monks are their Georgian chants, the Double is a
treasure-trove beckoning to be discovered. Montpon-Menesterol offers a
host of things to be seen.
Vergt
Situated between Perigueux and Bergerac, the area round Vergt is a
region of strawberries featuring the largest specialised market in
France. Its attractive, gently rolling valleys are one of its
well-known features.
Villefranche de Lonchat
The bastide was walled and had a castle although the
street plan suggests the existence of only one central axe. Lochac
Church dates from the same period as the bastide even if it is,
curiously, situated outside the village. In 1463 it was restored by
the monks of Sauve Majeure who also added a crypt. The style is a mix
of Romanesque and Gothic.
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Uzerche
Intact medieval city above the Vezere river.
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