Another grey day greets us. Nick and Grete leave around 09:30 to go and spend a couple nights with friends who live in the area. We loiter as late as is reasonable then take a cross-country drive west with no real destination in mind until we stop in the aire in Chabanais. Ali goes for a walk around the busy little town centre and along the riverbank. It's a pleasant little market town on a fine day but it's not worth getting out properly in the start-stop sh...

Workmen arrive at 08:00 to prune and shred trees on the road nearby, shattering the peace. It's a drizzly, sometimes misty, drive along the motorway to Uzerche where we stop for the service point. Ali and Grete walk over the bridge to the town then we have some lunch before rejoning the rainy motorway north past Limoges and down to the aire at Lac St Pardoux. Despite the rain we still cannot get over how beautiful the trees loook this autumn. We park in view...

The bells in four of Martel's seven towers are just as out of synchronisation as they were in summertime when they chime at seven seventy-seven and eight eighty-eight this morning. The sun is out but it's only 3 degrees, rising to 10 by the time we head into town. It's every bit as attractive as our last visit, but completely deserted; no terrace tables and parasols, no postcard stands, no hubble-bubble of tourists. The ancient stonework glows in the sun witho...

The early light casts lovely colours under the yellow leaved walnut orchard which numbers around 100 trees. Ali and Grete say goodbye to the owners and we set off alongside the Dordogne towards Beynac. Roadwork signs say maximum width 2.2m so we pull into a carpark to think but there is a Municipal Policeman there who tells us it is OK to carry on. The roadworks are narrow but no problem and we find another carpark below the towering chateau at Castelnaud, whi...

ThIck mist envelopes the landscape this morning but visibility has improved a little when we drive down to Monbazellac and find the chateau carpark amid the woods. The chateau would make a good visit another time with warmer, clearer conditions but after a look through the mist we carry on. The ethereal mist is actually quite relevant for it is the damp mist that forms the mould that give Monbazallic and Bererag wines their distict flavour. As we descend on th...