Crag martins sunning themselves before starting their long migration flight to escape the European autumn and head for an African spring. They are clinging to the face of a limestone cliff, below an overhang, in les Eyzies.
Les Eyzies is a village in the French region which the locals call the Périgord, and those Brits who have a second home there tend to call the Dordogne. It’s in the valley of the Vézère, which is indeed a tributary of the Dordogne river.
The surrounding countryside is attractive. The river is winding, with high limestone cliffs on either side. The cliffs are so steep, there’s a lot of overhangs. Caves can be spotted, some quite high up. So can hollows in the cliff faces where people made dwellings for themselves. Some date back to prehistory. Some were occupied as recently as the 1960s.
The cliffs on either side of the river are hundreds of yards apart. Between them is the flood plane, with the ground mostly rising fairly slowly. That’s where the towns and villages are, with the roads that connect them, and the farmland.
There’s tourism based on open-air activities. Walking on the network of footpaths; cycling on the narrow, winding and sometimes quiet roads; canoeing on the river. Some of the chateaus are massive medieval castles, dating from the time when the kings of England and France both laid claim to the territory.
But none of these is what les Eyzies pushes as its main tourist attractions. More on this, and on the crag martins, in tomorrow’s post.