Hello everyone, welcome to our first location based blog! Apparently creating websites and writing blogs is slightly more difficult than we initially thought (more likely its my internal struggle with perfection vs cheapness of not wanting to pay for the “pro” version of all the website apps that would make it way easier). Our goal is to hopefully post on a weeklyish basis with special exposés as I find time or have deep thoughts about travel stroller selection.
Let us know what you think or if you have any ideas to spruce this up! Our primary goal is to document this journey for our kids and share with you all. I’m hopeful that it will also provide inspiration and ideas for other families with young kids who want to travel but don’t know where to start. SPOILER ALERT: it is way harder to travel with kids than without, but the experiences and family memories far outweigh the increased tantrum count (exponential).
We aren’t much of writers so we decided to talk about our travels and use the blog to summarize. For more stories beyond this post including hearing how this week resulted in our FIRST NEGATIVE AIRBNB guest review (gasp!!!!) and accidentally ordering really expensive olives, you can listen here:
Where Are We?
If you didn’t happen to read the blog title, we are in Dordogne, France! Dordogne is a region two hours east of Bordeaux by car and is known for the stunning Dordogne river, prehistoric caves, Medieval towns and duck (So. Much. Duck.). We stayed for a week about 10 minutes outside of Sarlat-le-Caneda at an Airbnb with our parenting friends from Seattle (Parents, 4 yr old, 1 yr old) and had a full house.
So how did we find this region? Madeline’s dental hygienist of course! After the chaos of packing up our home, quitting our jobs, and the many days of pre-trip spreadsheeting we wanted to start somewhere with good food, wine, and weather. I’m glad Madeline is religious about getting her teeth cleaned, because it was an excellent recommendation and a great place to start slow.
I won’t go through the whole itinerary, but an average day for us was: wake up, go see a picturesque city with that day’s market, nap back at the Airbnb, and pool or river cool off before dinner. We’ve found the sweet-spot in traveling with our 4 and 2 year old is not to do too many activities in a single day. We are usually good for only one meal out and one half-day activity before they start to rebel.
Favorites Experiences in Dordogne
Here were some of our favorite activities from our trip! There is a map at the end of the blog if you’re looking for more details.
Places
- Cave Paintings at Cougnac – This far exceeded our expectations (30,000 year old paintings!!). We went right when it opened (10 am) to beat the heat and ended up having a private tour for our two families. The kids had mixed feelings, particularly when the guide turned off all the lights and showed the spot where bears used to sleep. The rest of the time Emmett worriedly said “Bear Coming!” everytime there was a noise.
- Water Gardens Carsac – These were a huge hit with the kids, mainly because of all of the wildlife we saw in the ponds. The gardens were stroller accessible (gravel paths) and we were able find some shade from the heat. Mae is excellent at spotting frogs on the lily pads and Emmett was ecstatic about waterfalls (even trickles).
- The Marqueyssac Gardens – More gardens! These were with a chateau near Beynac and had well manicured hedges and a walkway on a cliff above the Dordogne River. The kids loved the peacocks (“Peacock coming!”) and the view of the villages across the river were one of the prettiest views we saw (header photo for this post).
- Dordogne River – The namesake of the region, every town and bridge across it made us want to stop. We swam at the Plage De Vitrac that had shallow water for the kids and a cafe on the river beach for refreshments. If we were without kids, we would have rented a canoe at one of the several spots along the river.
- The Villages – We loved walking with the kids around all of the small towns in the region. The shops were mostly local products and the plentiful ice cream stores were appreciated by child and adult alike in the heat. Favorites were Domme and Sarlat-al Caneda. Pretty sure this is where Beauty and the Beast came from – little villages surrounded by forest and random, seemingly abandoned castles.
Food
- Farmers Markets – One of the principal reasons we picked the Dordogne region, there was a market every single day of the week in a town within 10 minutes from us (we hit 3 in a week!). Highlights were it being peak strawberry season (to Madeline’s delight) and all of the walnut, grown in the region, based items.
- Bread – Can you be in France and not love the bread??? The gas station 1 Euro baguette was better than most bread at home. Bread and cheese were a common post-nap snack for the kids. Mae learned to ask “Is this cheese stinky??” before trying it.
- Duck – Every menu had 4-5 duck based items and definitely a must try when here. duck confit was my favorite preparation but you can also get duck breast, fois gras and in casseroles as well.
- Restaurants –
- Le Petit Leon – This was our accidental 4 hour lunch. It was beautiful and delicious, the kids played in the grassy area but it was a bit long in 95 deg weather for the kiddos. Maybe we shouldn’t have said “oui!” to everything they offered us.
- Le Pot Occitan – Excellent lunch place we went after seeing the caves at Cougnac. Great covered patio area with affordable lunch specials including a pea-gazpacho and the best Duck I had on the trip.
- Gueule & Gosier – Great dinner spot in Sarlat, they basically gave us a private room in the back with the kids. In the land of duck, Madeline struggled to find good vegetarian food beyond bread and cheese and this place had an excellent set menu for vegetarians!
Family Moments
- Celebrating Remy’s 1st birthday in France! We had the best strawberry cake from a local patisserie that Brianna found. A lot of mixed French/English confusion in ordering but the dessert there was the best we had.
- Emmett Speaking French – Emmett repeats everything we say these days including when we speak to merchants with: “merci”, “au revoir”, “bonjour”, etc.
- Mae pretending she’s Rapunzel – Mae recently discovered Tangled and was convinced all the chateau towers with windows were where Rapunzel lives. In a few of them, she got to pretend play – but we’re not sure she quite understands the whole girl-trapped-in-a-tower concept.
- Per Mae: Favorite moment was “eating ice cream”. Mae tells me mint is her favorite new discovery but still orders strawberry when we stop.
- Per Emmett: Favorite moment was “race cars”. Anytime you ask him a question it’s either “2 year old” or “race cars!”. We did not see race cars but he did enjoy playing with his toy cars, one of the few toys he chose to bring along.
Lessons Learned
This is a fun section, where we put all of the things we learned along the way about traveling in the region as well as traveling in general with toddlers.
About Dordogne, France:
- Europe Heat Waves – We’ve traveled to Europe several times in June to beat-the-heat. 3 out of 3 times there has been an “unseasonal” heat-wave (95-100 F) during our trip. We were definitely glad our Airbnb had both a pool and A/C in the bedrooms.
- Driving was Easy – We flew in to Toulouse (Bordeaux was closer but Toulouse was cheaper) and rented a car from there. Driving has been super easy on the French roads with Google Maps being spot on. A few notes: 1) Tollways are plentiful and easy, just take a ticket when you get on and cash/tap-to-pay when you get off. 2) Radar enforcement on speed limits, our car came equipped with a special noise every time we approached one. 3) Most white vans were the craziest drivers, so gave them room on narrow roads :).
- Many Places Closed Sunday/Monday – A lot of the non-touristy attractions and restaurants are closed on Sunday and Monday (including grocery stores!), so definitely plan ahead if you are staying in the smaller villages. We went on multi-hour hunt for any food on Sunday with a pizza place that said it would take them two hours to make four pizzas and finally a kebab place that reluctantly agreed to make us food after initially offering us frozen chicken nuggets.
About Traveling with Toddlers:
- Jet Lag – Jet Lag wasn’t terrible with the kids this time, we really like the later afternoon/evening flights where we can do movies, dinner and then bed. There were a few late nights on arrival and Madeline and I found it best to alternate taking the kids so at least one of us slept.
- Meals with Kids – Generally the kids have been great with the meals, but reach their limit at the 1-2 hour mark (which happens in Europe…). Packable table activities are a hit, our favorites are the Travel Magna Tiles (Thanks G!) and The Pattern Blocks (Thanks Brianna for leaving your set with us!). Most restaurants opened at 7pm so we would get there right at 7pm, get a table easy and then out early before the next round of seating, which the staff appreciated. You also always have to ask for the check and it was 50/50 on going inside to pay or them delivering it to your table. With our limited French, we had to guess this most of the time and 50/50 were wrong.
Closing
Thanks for reading everyone! Our next destination is the Provence region of France, so stay tuned for more croissants and lavender fields.
Oof… French airbnbs are rough. I was very surprised to learn that I was expected to fully scrub the bathrooms before leaving the airbnb. One place I stayed clearly expected the cleaning by the guests to be sufficient and did none of their own. Some of the dishes were moldy! Don’t feel bad.
Oh my gosh, this makes me feel so much better. Insane that there is a cleaning fee on top of that!
I’ve never heard of Dordogne but it looks magical.The prehistoric caves sound uber cool. Sans bears! Def feel your pain on the Sunday, Monday closures! Your Bro and I felt that at Christmas even in Munich. Its like, I respect it but its so inconvenient. Most important to plan around! Keep writing! Loving it!
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