Driving in the Dordogne

Hi Patricia,

We were there in May rather than October and the weather was cool and a bit chilly. I think that October would be great though you never know.

We used La Roque Gageac and a base for 6 nights and stayed at Hotel La Belle Etoile. It worked great for us as the hotel gave us a pass for free parking and it was centrally located for all that we wanted to see and do in the region. I think that Beynac could work well also.

I'm hoping that Richard see this and can give you advice about the GPS!

As I so often do, I'm going to recommend that you go to Gemut.com for information on renting a car and driving in Europe: http://www.gemut.com/car-rentals/free-rental-car-booklet.html. After you have thoroughly explored the information there, contact Andy to help you with your rental and answer any questions you might have.

Recently I have posted another website that should help with driving in France: http://about-france.com/travel.htm.

When we were in the area, we stayed in Sarlat and we didn't have a car. Knowing what I know now and having driven in France (or at least navigated) I wish we would have.

We were there in October 2009 and the weather was lovely. However, we were in northern France in early June 3 years later and it was wet and cold. For averages, this is my favorite source, but it's good to expect the unexpected: http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=598807&cityname=Brive-la-Gaillarde-France. I picked Brive-la-Gaillarde to link to since it seems to be the closest, but Bergerac (http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=592787&cityname=Bergerac-France) might also work.

Regardless of the weather, there are some amazing things to see there and you will have plenty of time to see them. We loved Font de Gaume and Lascaux of course, but we equally enjoyed Maison Forte de Reignac (http://www.maison-forte-reignac.com/main.php?l=en) and La Roque Sainte -Christophe (http://www.roque-st-christophe.com/main.php?l=en). Be aware that both the websites I linked to are a little glitchy and even if you are in the English part, some things will still be in French.

You make me want to go back to see what we missed! Have a great time.

The GPS companies sell the basic device somewhat cheaply in hopes of getting you to buy additional mapsets and updates. It's like buying a budget computer printer and having them take their profit when it comes time to buy ink.

We went through the question this spring, and ended up just buying a new (but refurbished and discontinued model) Garmin GPS from Amazon for about $110 that included full European and North American map sets, figuring that we'd also have a newer map set for domestic use after the European trip. And then spent maybe another $20 on a memory card for the GPS because when we went to update the unit online, the updated European mapset was bigger than space available on the GPS unit. But we had a nice updated device that also showed things like speed camera enforcement areas and speed limits in areas where speed signs were scarce.

I'd be wary of trying to figure out strange navi systems while in the rental car company parking garage. The Mercedes we rented in Germany had a really awesome GPS, complete with realtime speed limit updates for construction zones on the Autobahn, but the owner's manual was 100% in German, which we don't speak, and actually trying to program a destination into it would have probably been an exercise in frustration.

We went to the Dordogne in mid-to-late October last year and got really lucky with the weather, but I don't think you can count on that -- I think you have to be prepared for it to be really miserable and rainy. But we, as I said, got lucky, and while it was overcast and gray a lot of the time, it never got so wet that it really bothered us from what we were doing, and as well we had a couple of glorious sunny days, I wish for the same for you!

It's much easier to see things in the Dordogne with a car than trying to use buses and rail. Hiring a guide-driver (several are recommended in the RS France guide) would be easiest but very expensive, especially for just one traveler. So a rental is the next best option. Driving isn't difficult, you can get an automatic but a manual shift is cheaper to rent and gets better mileage, if you can work it.

GPS helps, especially without a navigator in the passenger seat. A map is also a good idea so you can orient yourself to surroundings and tell if the GPS is taking you on some impractical route. Our is a Magellan and we paid about $65 (with AAA discount) for a map of Europe, not just France. Are you sure the one you looked into wasn't for all of Europe?

We stayed five nights at Le Petit Versailles in Beynac and liked it very much. Overlooks the valley, but a short walk down the hill to "downtown" Beynac. There are other nice places there too, as well as several good restaurants. We enjoyed visiting La Roque Gageac, but I don't think I would have wanted to stay there because the buildings front right on the highway. Its vertical layout gives it charm but also puts you right up against traffic. I think you're wise not to base in Sarlat. It's well worth a visit, especially on market day, but getting in and out of the center takes awhile.

We were in the Dordogne for the first time last month, in mid-May. We stayed in Sarlat and visited Lascaux, Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, Marqueyssac gardens and Château de Castelnaud. The area is somewhat rolling, but not difficult driving. The roads seemed to be almost exclusively one lane each direction, with a few main roads good enough to go 60 mph, but many more winding and 30-50 mph. We had a Garmin and a new $100 European map chip that I purchased from their web site. Generally navigation with the Garmin was good, but it occasionally took us down roads that dead-ended and sometimes didn't have the correct count of exits on roundabouts. More problematically, it frequently refers to roads by different names than are posted on French road signs, making those quick decisions in the roundabouts more problematic. I can't emphasize enough having another detailed source of maps besides the Garmin. It really was confusing in some cases and only having a separate detailed map allowed us to find our way. Our daughter downloaded very detailed maps onto her iPhone, and we found that in many cases navigating by her iPhone was more reliable. What I mean by this is that when we compared the route the Garmin would have taken us, with the iPhone route, the iPhone software had chosen a better route, or sometimes the only accurate route. It was at least very helpful to have a 'second opinion' when it looked like the Garmin was taking us in the wrong direction, or was just plain 'confused'. BTW, the weather was rainy and the highs in the 50's. I think if the sun had been out the temps would have been in the 70's at least. It definitely felt like shoulder season. Sarlat was not busy at all in the evenings. It was rainy when we went to Marqueyssac and we seemed to be the only visitors for some part of the time. Castelnaud was busy but mostly because there were busloads of French school kids visiting. There was only one English tour at Lascaux that day (at 10:30) and it was a pretty big group.