Hi all.
Am in the midst of booking a 27 night trip in September 2020. Flying into Barcelona; immediately heading up to the Dordogne, then to Basque Country, then back to Barcelona.
The French portion of our itinerary is as follows:
Arrive Barcelona on a Sunday at about 12:30 pm. Pick up a car and drive to Cucugnan (about 3 hrs). Two nights there at the Rick Steves recommended https://www.ecuriedecucugnan.com/
Plan is to spend the full day at Cucugnan hiking up to Queribus, seeing Perypertuse, and (if we aren't too wiped out) doing the spa in Rennes le Baines.
The morning we depart the plan is to get up early (5 am), drive 90 minutes, and make it into Carcosonne by 7 am before the crowds set in. Spend the morning there, have lunch, and leave. Then drive to Puycelsi for two nights at the Rick Steves recommended https://ancienne-auberge.fr/
Plan to spend the day staying at Puycelsi doubling back to Albi to see the Toulouse-Latrec museum, and other sights in Albi, returning to Puycelsi in the early evening.
After a second night in Puycelsi, will saunter up to St. Cirq Lapopie, spending two nights there at the Rick Steves recommended https://aubergelesombral.wordpress.com/le-sombral/ .
During our full day at St. Cirq, we will spend the morning visiting the caves at Grotto de Peche Merle http://www.pechmerle.com/
My S.O. and I are avid bridge players, and I noticed a bridge club in Figeac, so we may also try to incorporate that into our itinerary there (it's a great way to meet local people).
The day we leave St. Cirq, we will head up to Rocamadour and spend the entire day there, leaving about an hour after sunset. Then drive to Sarlat (where we have advised our B & B that we will be arriving quite late).
Then, 5 nights in Sarlat at the Rick Steves recommended La Laterne B&B http://www.sarlat.biz/
Then, we depart for two nights in Bordeaux, stopping in St. Emilion on the way. In Bordeaux, a town not covered in Rick Steves, we will be staying at https://www.gites.fr/gites_lurbe-bleue_bordeaux_h907291_en.htm
After a day exploring downtown Bordeaux (I am particularly interested in https://www.laciteduvin.com/fr), then depart for Ciboure, where we are staying for two nights at the Villa Erresinolettean http://www.chardiet.com/
After that we head south into Spain, visiting San Sebastian (2 nights); Bilbao (3 nights); Zaragosa (2 nights) and Barcelona (5 nights) before returning home.
If anyone has comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms, or has had experiences at any of the places we are staying, I would be very interested in hearing them.
I am particularly hearing about anything that requires advance reservation (other than the prehistoric stuff around Sarlat, which is well covered in Rick Steves).
Thanks in advance to all who take the time to respond!