Greetings From France - The Final Chapter

Friday, our last full day in France, was one of the most interesting and diverse.

We started out with local market day in Riberac, the nearest town of substance (about 10 kms away) to where Peter and Helen live. Local market have been held for centuries, with each town having its own day. Vendors did not have permanent storefronts, and instead they would move from town to town. It is the mountain coming to Mohammed. Riberac is not a town of note historically, but rather a commercial center for the area and market day serves as a social event as much as a shopping opportunity. The town square is closed to traffic and vendors selling everything from fruit & vegetables, to meat, fish, & game, to baked goods, and all of the local specialties (walnuts, honey, foie gras). The emphasis here is on fresh. There are also vendors selling household items, and some entertainment provided by a trio of clowning men who made their way through the area. It was great fun and although it harkens back to an older time before the advent of supermarkets, we were constantly brought back to the present by the fact that the French air force has a fighter jet training base nearby and very loud F-16s were performing exercises above us.

From there it was on to Les Eyzies, a small town that serves as a tourist base for the pre-historic attractions in that area of the Dordogne. We had lunch at a wonderful restaurant called La Metarie, again taking a menu of local specialties including garlic soup, pate Perigourd, and confit de canard.

With our full stomachs, we went to the first of the two main pre-historic cave sites in the area, Grotte de Font-de-Gaume. Discovered in 1901, Font-de-Gaume is a cave about 250 yards up the side of a hill that contains some of the most amazing polychrome paintings and engravings. What makes them amazing is first that they are about 14,000 years old. The other amazing thing is that the paintings are all of animals and utilize modern techniques for representing the subjects in three dimensions. For instance, a very detailed picture of a horse, utilizes the natural curve of the cave wall, to represent how the hind quarters and rump rise from the back. It is hard to describe, but was probably one of the most exciting parts of our trip. The 45-minute tour is limited to 12 people at a time and must be reserved way in advance (hats off to Betsy who took care of this). The group size limits and other great care is taken to ensure that the caves are not damaged by the introduction of humans trekking through constantly.

The artists of these works did not live in the cave. Firstly, it would have been too dark and somber, and historians believe that it was treated as more of a sanctuary or holy site. It is believed that the artists worked in the caves by oil lamp, and this is supported by formations that served as natural chimneys for the smoke of these lamps. The tour was in French, but our guide spoke quite clearly and I was able to understand about 90% of what she was saying.

During the hour we had between our reservations at the two sites, Betsy made a quick visit to the Pre-Historic Museum (subject matter is very old - the museum is pretty new and very modern) in Les Eyzies. It was a glorious day and I preferred to wander through town in the sunshine.

Nearby is Grotte des Combarelles, another cave site but in this one, the figures are etched into the stone, rather than painted. There are pictures of horses, bison, wooly mammoths, and rhinoceroses among others. There is also an occasional humanoid figure. The guide for this site spoke much faster and with a bit of a lisp. I only caught about 70% of what he said.

What is very interesting and still perplexing to historians is that in each of these two caves, there are occasionally found (both painted and etched) a triangular pyramid-like geometric shape. It is the only geometric shape found in the area, though other geometric shapes have been found in other areas of Europe. It is speculated that these might have been symbols of particular tribes of people, but it begs the question why all of the figures are drawn in free-form and no other geometric shapes depicted.

I think UFOs landed nearby.

Since we had a bit of time, we chose to take back roads all the way to Peter and Helen's, and it was beautiful. We passed mainly through farm country on roads with very few other cars.

Returning to Chez Berczeller, Peter urged us to soak our weary bodies in their outdoor hot tub. The air temperature was hovering in the upper 40s and low 50s and I had never used a hot tub in such brisk weather. We tried it anyway and boy, was it a treat! No pun intended as Peter is an MD, but it was just what the doctor ordered. I stayed in longer than Betsy and when I got out, I had thought that I would be freezing, but Peter assured me that my body would still be warm for a while. He was correct, and I stood in a cool breeze surveying the valley from the stone patio and listening only to the sounds of birds chirping. It was one of those moments when you realize that life is good.

Another great dinner prepared by Helen was preceded by a single malt scotch tasting. Okay, so it was only Peter and I drinking it, but the whiskey, the food, the wine, and the company were a wonderful and warm way to wrap up our trip to France. We slept well that night.

Rising before the sun on Saturday morning, we made our way to the airport in Bordeaux in the rain. I have mentioned the rain before, but what is truly amazing is that I can now state categorically that it rained only 6 times during our trip, but never on us. Three times were while we were driving and three times during the night. We had amazing luck.

Even the trip to the airport was pleasant. First of all, filling up the gas tank before returning the car, I calculated that even at $5.50/gallon for diesel, our big - by French standards - car got about 50 miles to the gallon (combination of diesel engine and manual transmission). Our other observation was that it seemed like any available space in and around Bordeaux, had grapes growing on it. At the airport, a small patch of land (maybe 15 X 15 feet) in the corner where the terminal building takes a jog to the right, had grapes growing.

Domestic airport security seemed to be less rigorous than US standards as we boarded our flight from Bordeaux to Paris. Arriving in Paris, however, we went through a more detailed security procedure, including being asked a series of questions at the boarding gate by security personnel. At neither airport, however, did anyone have to remove their shoes.

We had about 45 minutes to kill in the Air France lounge and had a celebrity sighting. Well, maybe not a celebrity, but Kato Kaelin certainly stood out with the even more un-natural coloring of his hair. Remember him from the OJ Simpson case? At least we did. And at least he was not on our flight.

A smooth flight home and we were re-united with our kids by 6PM on Saturday.

All in all, it was a great trip. We spent time with people we love, doing interesting things, seeing beautiful places, and eating wonderful food. Exactly what a vacation should be. Okay, so I would have preferred some spa time in there at some point . . .

Thanks for reading.