Holiday – Domaine de Peyrecaty, Belves, France (Day 1)

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After getting up at ‘silly-o’clock’, we jumped in the car and headed for East Midland’s Airport, and our flight at 7am to Bergerac Airport, courtesy of Ryanair. On arrival, the airport was heaving – much busier than I remember it back in my working days! In turn, and this added to the pressure at Security. As a result, we boarded our flight with only a few minutes to spare.

Luckily, we’d booked our seats and we found ours at the front, meaning we were about to enjoy a massive amount of legroom – a real godsend for our relatively short 85 minute flight.

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Bergerac Airport

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Our Transport

After landing at Bergerac Airport and picking up the hire-car from the hassle-free (and charm-free) Buggs Car Hire, we were soon on our way in a rather quaint 1.4 manual Kia Picanta (oooh, I’ve found a boot smaller than a Jaguar XKR’s!). We crunched through the gearbox, heading for Steve and Helen’s place – Domain de Peyrecaty – a beautiful location in the Dordogne Valley. It’s our home for the next four days.

As we began our journey, the promised weather forecast turned out to be true, and so we fired up the air-con on full, to compensate for the 30 degrees outside temperature (and the 50 degrees inside temperature!). Helen’s directions were perfect, and just an hour later, we were parking by their front-door.
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Steve and Helen’s – Just how we remember it

Steve and Helen met us at the door, and we were soon reminiscing about days-gone-by since we last saw them here in 2005.
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Scenes around Domain de Peyrecaty

After a quick guided tour, we then slipped into ‘casual mode’ and the four of us headed into Belves for lunch. And what a lunch it was, complemented by perfect weather, a great menu, prompt service and some stunning views from the town. Helen and I easily polished off a couple of demi-carafes of the house-white, whilst we all reflected reflecting on how things had changed in France, since the last time we were all together as a foursome.

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Yummy Lunch

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Yummy Views too!i

We staggered back to the car and headed back to base before spending the rest of the afternoon chilling-out round the pool.

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Then after enough time to recharge our batteries, and after a quick change, tucked-in to  the delights of Helen’s superb cooking – and talked the evening away. By 11pm our 3.30am start was catching up with us and so we turned in for the night.

We’re not sure what we’ll do tomorrow – the weather forecast looks good at 30 degrees plus, so we’ll study the map and make up our mind in the morning.

Nightly-bye!

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