Bourdeilles: Two Châteaux, Eleven Bells, and Strawberries Under a Cloud of Cream

 Bourdeilles: Two Châteaux, Eleven Bells, and Strawberries Under a Cloud of Cream

Today was the kind of travel day I enjoy most, not about covering great distances, but about slowing down enough to notice where I was.

Our destination was Bourdeilles, a small village in the Dordogne that manages to fit a remarkable amount of history into a very walkable place. We arrived in our two vans and drove up to one of the parking areas above the village. Before anything historical or picturesque, I have to mention one very practical discovery: there was an exceptionally clean public restroom at the parking area. When you are traveling, these things matter.

From there, we began making our way into Bourdeilles.

A Village Made for Wandering

The first impression was stone.

Stone walls. Stone houses. Stone steps. Cobblestone lanes that curved between buildings that looked as though they had been standing there forever.

But the stone never felt severe. Wooden shutters, some deep burgundy, others faded by time, softened the façades. Lace curtains appeared behind windows. Pots of flowers crowded around doorways. Trees threw shifting patterns of light and shadow across walls and streets.

One little house particularly caught my eye. Its warm ochre-colored façade was framed with wooden shutters, while pink and red flowers spilled along the front steps and beneath the windows. It looked cared for without looking staged.

Elsewhere, a cat wandered casually down a narrow lane beside an enormous stone wall, apparently unconcerned with either visitors or centuries of history.

I photographed old-fashioned wall lanterns hanging from iron brackets and ancient-looking chimneys rising from tile roofs. Then, above one of those roofs, there was a perfectly modern television antenna.

That juxtaposition made me smile.

Bourdeilles may look medieval, but people still live here. They watch television. They park their cars. They tend their flowers. They put chairs and little tables outside their doors.

It isn’t a museum pretending to be a village.

It is a village with a very long memory.

Église Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens

One of our stops was the Église Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens, the large church that rises above the surrounding houses.

From the street, its substantial bell tower dominates the rooflines. Walking beside it emphasizes just how massive the stone construction is compared with the little houses pressed around it.

Inside, everything changes.

The interior rises dramatically overhead in pale stone. Huge rounded arches lead one into another, supporting barrel and domed vaults whose blocks form almost geometric patterns above you. Simple rows of wooden chairs sit beneath this enormous architecture.

There are stained-glass windows, chandeliers, religious figures, an old wooden pulpit and a large crucifix mounted high on one wall.

It was the architecture that held my attention.

Looking upward through arch after arch, the church seemed much larger inside than I expected from walking through the village.

And then came one of those moments that cannot really be scheduled.

At 11:00, the church bell began to ring.

Once.

Twice.

And on it went.

I counted.

Eleven bells for eleven o’clock.

For a few moments, there was nothing to do except listen.

Two Châteaux, Two Eras

The interpretive sign at Château de Bourdeilles describes the site perfectly:

“Deux châteaux, deux époques.”

Two châteaux. Two eras.

The dramatic medieval fortress and its enormous keep represent one period of Bourdeilles’ history. Beside it stands something quite different, a far more refined Renaissance residence.

I had originally understood that Renaissance building to have been built for Catherine de Médicis, but its history is actually more interesting than that.

It was commissioned by Jacquette de Montbron, Lady of Bourdeilles, toward the end of the 16th century. Jacquette had spent time at the court of Catherine de Médicis, where she was exposed to the artistic and architectural ideas of the French Renaissance. Remarkably for a woman of her time, Jacquette is credited with playing a central role in designing her château.

Construction began around 1588. Jacquette died in 1598 before the entire plan could be completed, leaving part of her architectural vision unrealized.

That made me look at the building differently.

Instead of simply seeing another beautiful French château, I was looking at the surviving vision of a woman who lived more than four centuries ago.

From the higher ground around the château, the views across Bourdeilles were wonderful, layers of pale stone buildings and steep reddish roofs dropping toward the valley, framed by trees and countryside. The photographs almost arrange themselves into a timeline: medieval fortress, Renaissance château, centuries-old village, modern life.

Remembering the Village’s Dead

Near the church stands another reminder that Bourdeilles’ history did not end in the Renaissance.

Its war memorial reads:

“BOURDEILLES À SES GLORIEUX MORTS 1914–1918.”

Bourdeilles to its glorious dead.

The monument stands beneath mature trees, surrounded by chains suspended between large artillery-shell-shaped posts.

In a village this small, a memorial like this feels especially personal. These were not anonymous names from some distant city. They represented sons, husbands, brothers and neighbors from this community.

It was another layer of Bourdeilles.

Place de la Halle

Eventually I found one of my favorite places of the day.

Place de la Halle.

I sat beneath the trees in a wonderfully shady little area beside the square. Long stone benches lined the edge beneath mature trees, their branches creating a cool canopy against the old stone wall. A few early yellow and orange leaves had already fallen onto the cobblestones.

It was a perfect place to stop.

And, as so often happens in France, what looked like a simple village square turned out to have a story.

A historical placard explained that the square takes its name from the halle, or market hall, that once stood here. The medieval market structure was eventually replaced by a newer hall in the late 19th century.

Then came May 17, 1985.

Part of the château rampart collapsed.

The falling masonry destroyed the market hall. Fortunately, no one was killed. The neighboring former mairie survived, and the area was eventually opened into the square that exists today.

So I was sitting peacefully in the shade in a place that had been dramatically reshaped within living memory.

Across the square and along the neighboring streets were cafés, old houses and little lanes disappearing between buildings. One view included a stone cross or column rising from the square, framed by trees and centuries-old façades.

There were few people about.

No crowds.

No rush.

Just Bourdeilles.

A Medieval Word That Still Lingers

During the day I also encountered the word “banalités.”

In modern English, “banalities” sounds like trivial or ordinary things. But in medieval France, banalités had a completely different meaning.

They were obligations imposed under the authority of the feudal lord. Villagers might be required to use the lord’s mill, communal oven or wine press, and pay for the privilege.

A moulin banal, for example, wasn’t simply the neighborhood mill. It was a mill the inhabitants of the lordship could be obligated to use.

Suddenly an old word becomes a glimpse into ordinary medieval life, not kings and battles, but how someone got flour ground for tomorrow’s bread.

Lunch Under the Trees

Eventually, history gave way to lunch.

We ate at Les Tilleuls, tucked beneath a tremendous leafy tree that shades the outdoor tables. I had photographed the restaurant earlier while wandering through the village, the terrace almost disappearing beneath the foliage.

The menu was wonderfully unpretentious: salads, foie gras, duck confit, steak haché, omelettes, jambon-frites and other straightforward French dishes.

An omelette arrived folded over itself and beautifully browned, accompanied by a generous pile of thick-cut golden fries and a simple green salad with tomato.

And then there was dessert.

A glass dish filled with fresh strawberries arrived topped with what can only be described as a mountain of whipped cream.

Not a decorative little swirl.

A mountain. Of Chantilly whipped cream  

It was exactly the sort of dessert that makes absolutely no attempt at restraint, and it was a wonderful ending to the meal.

By the time we finished, everyone began gathering near the vans again. Our morning of churches, châteaux, cobblestones and medieval history was coming to an end.

Back to Château Marouatte

The two vans eventually pulled back into the parking area at Château Marouatte.

Everyone climbed out. The doors were locked so that the dogs were safely inside, and then, almost immediately, the group dispersed.

After a morning of walking, photographing, looking up at church vaults, reading historical signs and exploring Bourdeilles, I wasn’t particularly interested in rushing into the next thing.

I found an outside table.

There was shade beneath the tree and beneath the canopies.

And I sat.

Sometimes travel is about what you see.

Sometimes it is about what you learn.

And sometimes it is simply about recognizing that you are sitting beneath a tree in the French countryside with nowhere you need to be for the next few hours.

We received a message from the organizers:

Cocktail hour in the courtyard at 5:30.

Perfect.

Until then, I was quite content to stay exactly where I was.

Today Bourdeilles gave me a medieval fortress, a Renaissance château designed by an extraordinary woman, a soaring stone church, eleven bells at eleven o’clock, quiet cobblestone streets, a wandering cat, a square with a surprising history, lunch beneath the trees, and strawberries buried beneath an improbable amount of whipped cream.

But perhaps my favorite thing about the day was its pace.

There was time to look.

Time to photograph.

Time to sit in the shade.

And time simply to notice where I was.

Bourdeilles, France.

Sometimes that is more than enough.