![]() ![]() We looked at the raised earth terrace where, so we had been told, the cave’s tenants had laid down ferns as bedding. The entrance was some 10 feet high, and as we stepped into the gaping maw, the temperature dropped from 80 Fahrenheit to a damp 65 or so within. The opening could not be seen from below, for it was buried by the oak canopy. After taking a few photographs, we followed the trail the final yards, pushed a few branches out of our way, and scrambled down a rocky drop-and there it was, the cave we had come looking for, the grotto in which locals had hidden during World War II whenever Nazi activity became particularly hot and nasty. ![]() Looking to our village, we could see the church tower and, after a bit of speculating, we identified our own house.īut we hadn’t come here to look outward from this mountain we had come to look inside it. The river snaked eastward several hundred feet below, and the Rouffillac Chateau sat on its hillside perch almost straight across the void, over the highway to Carlux. Stepping to the edge of an outcropping, we saw for miles before us the valley of the Dordogne. The dense woods prevented us from seeing outward until we were near the top, and–just as our landlord had described to us when giving us directions–we came to a slight but dramatic opening in the trees. The trail took us upward and eventually wound to the right, spiraling uphill and toward the summit of what was revealing itself to be a conical hill. In the mud and leaf litter, among the acorns and chestnuts, were scars of rooting wild pigs. We climbed uphill, the trail taking us through a second-growth plantation marked with the signs of an active logging industry-clearings, piles of logs and stumped trees ringed by spindly shoots, all fighting toward the sunlight splashing through the canopy. We pulled over and locked our bikes to a tree, and along the south edge of the vineyard we went, following a path that quickly led us into the chestnut forest. We turned right on a side road toward a settlement called Le Gard and pedaled uphill along the narrow country road until we saw on our right about one acre of grapevines. Julien, across the bridge over the Dordogne River and a mile down the other side of the river.
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