Rebecca & Marie followed by Tom, canoeing on the Dordogne

Tom with my wheelchair, canoeing on the Dordogne

Me steering from behind, canoeing on the Dordogne

After lunch in La Roque Gageac; note empty ice cream glasses

La Roque Gageac

We pulled in at La Roque Gageac, yet another of les plus beaux villages de France. It was clearly a big tourist attraction.

We had lunch at a restaurant on the main street—it had a covered patio with tables across the street on the riverbank side. Our waiter was every inch the professional French waiter: middle-aged, slim, dark, constantly darting back and forth across the street to the restaurant. You knew that if he’d seen one tourist, he’d seen a million, yet he managed to keep from rolling his eyes at us.

The menu had a wide selection of interesting ice cream flavors. I urged Claudia to order dessert, but she looked doubtful. “It’s the cream,” she said. “I don’t want whipped cream out of a can.” When the waiter returned to take our dessert orders, she said, “Votre chantilly…?”

He responded immediately, punctuating each word with a stab of his pen. “De la maison, Madame! De la maison!”

“Bon,” Claudia responded, and ordered ice cream with whipped cream. She turned back to me, relieved. “Hausgemacht,” she murmured, “Good”.

“He knew what you were worried about,” I pointed out.

“Good thing, too—I didn’t know what I was going to say next!”

After lunch it was back on the bike, heading toward the Château de Beynac. The route was up, up, and more up. Marie was with me, and Enrico was driving the van; at some point he phoned to report, thrilled, that he’d found an accessible (pay) toilet, so we met him there and used it (yea! Enrico, I owe you 50 cents). More up, up, up, with the castle somehow always in view but always further away. Enrico phoned again to confirm that the castle was utterly inaccessible, so instead of continuing up, we turned off and biked back to Sarlat.

Overall, I was sorry not to have seen Beynac, or to have been able to sightsee in La Roque Gageac. But I enjoyed the canoeing tremendously, and was glad that my ancient Girl Scout canoeing skills seemed to have survived the decades.

Moulin de la Tour

So everyone rode off and I got in the van and we drove to Moulin de la Tour, a 16th century walnut mill on the Enéa River. The mill is water powered, the grindstones are granite, the nut paste is heated in a cast iron cauldron over a wood fire, and pressed through canvas cloth to obtain the oil.

The granite grindstone, reducing the walnut meat to a paste

Heating the walnut paste

Pressing out the oil

One thing we noticed about the mill was how low the ceilings were. In addition, the drive system (pulleys and belts from the water wheel to the various mechanisms) was hung from the ceiling, reducing head room even more. Everyone who worked there seemed to be very short, but a taller inattentive visitor would be in danger of being scalped!

Les Jardins du Manoir d’Eyrignac

We also stopped at the gardens of Eyrignac, an homage to the art of topiary (or, as our fellow rider Rebecca said, “Very organized bushes”). Only a very small portion of the gardens could be reached by wheelchair, and that involved pushing over crushed gravel paths, so despite the reduced entrance price, for me it wasn’t really worth the effort.

La Ferme des Campagnes

La Ferme des Campagnes is a duck farm near Rocamadour. Here ducks are raised for 3 months and then force fed for 12 days prior to slaughter. They become foie gras, confit de canard, cassoulet and more. We observed the gavage (force feeding) and a video about the business. The farm (heavily dependent on tourists) was very accessible.

We also stopped in Souillac, where the able-bodied riders took a look at the cathedral (a sculptural and stained glass homage to St. Martin of Tours, as far as I could tell from the little flyer about it) and the Musée de l’Automate, a museum devoted to mechanical toys.

The bulk of the ride was along the Dordogne River. It was lovely—a nice wide road, very little vehicle traffic, shaded with large trees and cooled by river breezes. It was a cool and misty day anyway, and I was very comfortable (although I was informed by my husband that I was the only one who was happy that it wasn’t hotter). We turned away from the river shortly after passing through Veyrignac and went north on a rails-to-trails bike path for about 12 kilometers. Here the going was a little tougher; it was starting to rain, and the (paved) trail had a pronounced cross slope.

When we reached the end of the trail at the outskirts of Sarlat, I was wet and crabby. Tour leaders Enrico and Gwendal were waiting for me with the van, and offered to give me a lift the rest of the way, but some sort of stubborn pride had kicked in, and I declined. It was rush hour, and traffic was heavy, but my escorts (my husband and Enrico) just flanked me and we forced our way in through the cars. Some more uphills, some crazy downhills, a couple of traffic circles, and we were there. Another bike tour group was unloading at the hotel, and I got a little applause as I rolled into the courtyard.

The big event for the Thursday was visiting the giant cave of Padirac. There are very few pictures, I’m afraid, as photography isn’t permitted in the cavern.

The Legend

The Devil and Saint Martin
The devil formed the Gouffre with the kick of his heel to challenge Saint Martin. If the saint were able to cross the abyss, Lucifer would give him all of the souls of the damned peasants he was about to drive straight to hell.

So Saint Martin, driven by his faith, spurred his mule. With a tremendous leap, the animal reached the other side of the crater, leaving an imprint of his hooves in the rock that is still discernable today.

Defeated and angry, the devil immediately disappeared to the bottom of the Gouffre…

The Visit

I had studied the website pretty carefully and was fairly convinced that it was not going to be accessible to me, and I was reconciled to that. So I was surprised when Marie announced that we were going to have a special tour. Our first view of the visitors building was not very encouraging, and in fact, there were no physical or architectural accommodations for access whatsoever. What there was were three strong young men.

Marie went inside to pay for our tickets, and promptly came bouncing back out to ask me for proof of disability. I handed her my handicapped parking permit which apparently did the trick. She came back with the three strong young men (hereafter 3SYM), and they escorted us around to the back of the building where there were still steps, but not as many. The 3SYM picked me up, chair and all, and lifted me up to the level where the restrooms (so not accessible!) were, kindly inquiring if I needed to use them before we got going. Then down several steps into the visitor center, and to the first elevator.

This elevator took us down 99 meters into the chasm, and I naively assumed that at this point we were done with elevation changes. Not so! I didn’t keep good track of all the staircases we descended/ascended, but trust me when I say there were a lot of them. Luckily there were very few visitors the morning of our visit. This enabled the 3SYM to carry me up and down narrow, dark, wet, concrete stairs without having to shoo hundreds of other tourists out of the way first.

Eventually we arrived at an underground boat jetty, where we bypassed the fairly long line of waiting tourists and got into a boat (yes, wheelchair and all). While reviews of the caverns in English frequently emphasize the lack of English-speading guides, one of the 3SYM spoke excellent English and provided the commentary. The boat ride was 0.5km of serene crystal clear underground river. The lighting is very subdued, the vault of the ceiling far above our heads. At points it was raining; our guide explained that the rain is a constant feature no matter what the weather above ground. At the other end we disembarked and walked (rolled, were carried) through more amazing caverns and to more underground lakes and waterfalls. At the Lac Supérieur the able-bodied visitors climb higher and wind up back at the boat dock; we turned around and retraced our steps.

The official website has a nifty, interactive, (inaccessible, slow) Flash tour; it’s pretty impressive.

I asked the 3SYM how often they were called on for wheelchair-carrying duty; they guesstimated a couple of times a month. I asked if the management had any rules and regulations about who they would or would not allow in and carry; they didn’t know. So this access seems to be undocumented and at the discretion of the management (the 3SYM declined to answer questions about the ownership of the caverns; that’s apparently a sensitive subject). I have a hard time imagining that a tourist attraction in the US would do what the 3SYM did.

Oh, the toilets! The 3SYM lifted me up the one step into the ladies room, and then blocked the door; Claudia helped me in and out of the narrow stall (although the toilet paper roll holder was a casualty when I tried to use it as a grab bar).

La Ferme de Gernes

On the first day’s ride, we had a stop arranged at La Ferme de Gernes owned by farmer and baker Daniel Chastaing. M. Chastaing had some refreshments laid out for us, including bread and soft cheese of his own production; preserves (quince and something else), and tea and coffee. We saw the bakery, including wood oven and proofing baskets.

Notice the chalk marks telling the bikers to stop (!) for bread

L-R: Marie (tour leader), M. Chastaing (prop), Rebecca, Katja, John, Claudia

Wood burning oven, table with proofing baskets

Beautiful finished loaves

Collonges-la-Rouge

Our lunch stop was at Collonges-la-Rouge, 8th century priory town, one of the plus beaux villages de France (“most beautiful villages of France”—this is an official designation). Marie was worried that I wasn’t taking enough pictures, so after lunch she took my camera and dashed around getting some of the loveliest buildings.

L-R: John, Katja, Claudia. Claudia has two bikes because Allen is pulling the handcycle.

Our lunch spot. Duck. Lots of duck.

After we had eaten, the proprietor, while clearing our dishes, pointed at each plate and pronounced, "Good! Good! Bad!" depending on whether food had been left uneaten. L-R: John, Katja, Claudia, Allen (at last!), Gwendal (tour leader).

Note the scallop icon of St James (St Jacques, Santiago). Collonges-la-Rouge is on the pilgrim route to Compostela.

Obligatory accessibility notes: Collonges-la-Rouge has some very steep and narrow streets, but it is very much a tourist town, and help is readily available. There are accessible toilets in the square near the church.

More to come…

I may have also mentioned that complicating things was the fact that Monday, the day before our departure, was a holiday in France. Among other things, this forced us to rent a car on Saturday that we didn’t need until Monday.

I tried to arrange shipping in advance, but discovered that FedEx doesn’t work that way. “Call the day before,” the FedEx International Freight coordinator in the US said airily. “The day before is a holiday in France,” I said. “Should I call the day before that? Will anyone speak English? Will they know what customs forms I need to fill out?”

The tour coordinator rescued me briefly from my panic by telling me that the hotel was very helpful, and he was sure it would all work out. Fast forward to Monday morning. The tour leaders all had to leave by 9:00 am. At the hotel, probably because it was a holiday, no one was working who spoke English, and my French wasn’t up to dealing with FedEx. Which didn’t matter, because FedEx was closed. So I started trying to schedule the shipment online, and Allen worked on figuring out customs forms.

Several hours later, after many online dead ends (“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that”), we had managed to establish that a shipper with a US address cannot, in fact, schedule a shipment from France to the United States. While I tried not to melt down, and my husband doggedly took apart the handcycle, our dear friends offered to drive with us to Toulouse (a 4 hour round trip for them) with some of the stuff in their car.

Eventually we all agreed that this was the only way. We packed our bags, checked out, and set about putting stuff in the cars. My husband had gotten the handcycle box into our little Renault Modus, but was certain the wheelchair would not fit in as well. But Allen and Claudia—Claudia in particular—looked at our car with the bike box, wheel bag, and our two bags in it, and exclaimed, “Look how much more room there is in here!” I went and sat in my seat and refrained from offering helpful advice, and Allen and Claudia poked at things and moved them around a bit, and lo! everything fit. My husband was flabbergasted. Claudia helpfully added, “And you still have enough room for a hitchhiker!”

So I didn’t have to ship the bike, and Allen and Claudia didn’t have to drive to Toulouse. All my planning (which was inadequate in this area anyway) came to naught, but it worked out anyway.

I’m afraid I wasn’t alert enough to take pictures of food except for our desserts the second night in Rocamadour. For the organized dinners, the tour leaders set the menu, so everyone ate the same thing (except in cases of food allergies or the like).

Brive-la-Gaillarde

We had dinner the first night at La Truffe Noir. As I said in the hotel post, the restaurant is accessible via the French doors to the courtyard and has an accessible restroom.

Entrée: chilled white asparagus over greens with shaved Parmesan cheese
Plat: small casserole of duck stew topped with lovely piped mashed potatoes – a high end shepherd’s pie. There were truffles somewhere in here, too
Dessert: I’m blanking a little here, but I’m thinking there were red currants involved

Rocamadour

The first evening’s dinner was at the Best Western Beau Site. The restaurant is actually across the street from the hotel and overlooks the valley. Access to the dining room was fine; I didn’t try the restroom.

Entrée: a mousse of scorpion fish (rascasse)
Plat: rabbit leg in mustard sauce, fried potatoes (they had a fancier name than that, but I can’t remember it), a small green salad
Fromage: Rocamadour (the speciality cheese of this region)
Dessert: this is just sad – forgetting desserts?!

The second evening’s dinner was on our own. We went to Le Restaurant au Château L’Hospitalet. Again, the dining room was accessible. The restroom was accessible assuming you can get past the initial doorway, about 25 inches/64 cm.

Entrée: none
Plat: grilled slices of duck breast on tagliatelle with wild mushroom sauce, small green salad
Dessert: the only food I managed to take pictures of!

Allen's dessert was île flottant (floating island), which made him so happy.	Claudia had a cold soufflé which reminded us of tiramisu. The main flavor was walnuts, a specialty of the Dordogne region.
My husband had his usual crème brûlée, so beautifully presented.	My dessert was very complicated and included an elaborate phyllo creation with a variety of fruits inside, quince sauce, and a scoop of Mirabelle ice cream made to look like an apple.

Sarlat

The first evening’s dinner was at the restaurant of the Hôtel Saint Albert, just down the street from our hotel. The bar area was accessible, but the dining area is about 7-8 steps up, and the toilet is downstairs from the bar. I got out of the chair and bumped up the stairs on my butt, and was glad I’d worn a denim skirt.

Entrée: foie gras with fig compote on toast points
Plat: leg of duck confit, potatoes
Dessert: walnut cake

The second evening’s dinner was on our own, and we went to a Moroccan restaurant, La Palmeraie. Access to the dining room was fine, and also to the restroom, once we’d cleared out the stuff in the way (coat racks, etc). We could only eat about a third of what we were brought, and even that was so much!

Entrée: a variety of salads, including cold roasted eggplant, a mixed salad that included potato salad, cold spicy cooked carrots, and tomatoes, and a salad of tomatoes and roasted green peppers. We were feeling so vegetable-deprived by this point that we fell on our salads like starving savages and devoured them.
Plat: a gigantic mound of couscous, accompanied by garbanzo beans, stewed vegetables (onions, tomatoes, zucchini), soaked raisins, and a very hot chili sauce. Then each person had their own protein, either chicken or lamb in various forms.
Dessert: one each of a chocolate covered coconut ball, a cookie indistinguishable from a kipferl (which I suspect tells us something about the trade between the Austrian Empire and the Orient), sugared and fried phyllo dough, and a small cornmeal cake that I ought to know the name of, but don’t.

The third evening was our final farewell dinner, and it was at Le Petit Manoir in the medieval city. I’m sorry to say that it was the least accessible of all the restaurants we went to, with the entrance being up several sets of stairs, followed by a spiral staircase (wide, at least) to get to the dining room. On the other hand, I think it was the best dinner we had. The chef (and owner) is Vietnamese, and her dishes had a light and interesting touch. Three guys carried me up all those stairs, but it was a very dicey thing for them, especially the spiral staircase part.

Entrée: composed, multi-layered green salad with three whole capers on the side and many fresh herbs, including basil, tarragon and dill, and small cubes of French feta
Plat: grilled salmon with black rice
Dessert: chocolate mousse cake

Bringing the handcycle
We wound up borrowing both the bike box and a wheel bag from our friends. I put pieces of white duct/duck/whatever tape all over them and wrote “Wheelchair” on the tape in three languages. We took advantage of some extra space in the wheel bag to pack my handcycle backpack, water bag and most of my biking clothes in there as well (not the helmet), on the assumption that if the handcycle wheels got lost, I wouldn’t need the biking clothes, either.

The new EU air carrier accessibility regulations require carriers landing in EU countries to allow wheelchair users to take two wheelchairs free of charge. We had absolutely no problem dragging the box and wheel bag up to Lufthansa and saying, “This is a second wheelchair.” There were no excess baggage charges.

Tour support
ExperiencePlus normally requires a minimum of six riders in order to put on a tour. For six riders they provide two tour leaders. In our case the tour went on with five people, and they supplied three tour leaders. Again, I appreciate the significant investment ExperiencePlus put in to this tour.

Every morning there was a time specified for breakfast (dependent on the hotel), a time for “bags down” (checked out of the room with luggage in the lobby if there was a change of hotels that day), and a time for “arrows down” (meaning that the person marking the route had gotten a sufficient head start on the riders). We were also given maps and elevation charts.

The three tour leaders rotated marking, sweeping, and driving the van. The marker rode out ahead of the group and put chalk arrows down on the route so that the riders didn’t have to keep stopping to check their maps. The sweeper rode after the slowest bicyclist (guess who?). The van driver transported the bags to the new hotel on moving day, and sort of patrolled the entire route in case anyone needed water or a snack or mechanical help.

The first day, the tour leaders were a little apprehensive about what my abilities were, about how much help I would need, and about the handcycle itself. When we first turned up with it, they all looked at it and said, “Hmm, that’s smaller than I thought it would be.” Then they tried to put it in the van, at which point it suddenly seemed much larger.

By the second day, everyone was much more comfortable. We’d look at the elevation chart for the day, and the leaders would suggest modifications for me, like driving me the first couple of kilometers if it was mostly uphill, or picking me up before major uphill sections. With three tour leaders, there were always two able-bodied people to get the handcycle on or off the van. In addition, the van would stop at strategic locations just to make sure I didn’t need a lift or anything else. Lunch stops were fairly planned, and the van would meet us with the wheelchair then as well.

Somewhat to my dismay, I wound up riding about half the planned distance overall. Even my longest day was less than the planned route. But I appreciated the tour leaders’ and my husband’s input in planning each of my days, and the flexibility that was possible by having such a small group. And I appreciated my friend Claudia’s mantra: We’re not here to suffer.

And how about that bathroom situation?

I admit that I did dehydrate myself probably more than I should have. At the same time, the tour leaders were super about scouting out accessible restrooms at lunch stops and some of the very touristy destinations. There was one carrying incident; we found a really nice little camping spot with an accessible restroom in the town of Veyrignac. My wheelchair was in the van, it was late afternoon, and the van driver was delivering the luggage to the next hotel (when the faster able-bodied riders get to the hotel, usually several hours before I did, it’s nice if they have their luggage), and we would have probably had to wait a half hour or more for him to come back to where we were.

I eye-balled the distance between the door and the bathroom stall—it wasn’t far and the bathroom looked fairly clean, so I was feeling ok about just scooting in there. Our sweeper, Enrico, wasn’t so sanguine. “I don’t want you on the floor!” he exclaimed. “I’ll carry you!” I figured he’d pick me up bride over the threshold style, but no, he hugged me around the chest and picked me up vertically, feet dangling, clutched to his bosom. “You’re so tall! I can’t see!” Luckily it was a short distance, because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t see, either.

There was some other carrying, too, which I’ll write about in other posts. I was carried into and out of a canoe, up and down steps into a restaurant, and up and down an amazing number of steps in the Gouffre de Padirac, an incredible cave system that will get its own post.

The bottom line
The flexibility, openness and enthusiasm of our tour leaders (Marie, Enrico, and Gwendal) really made this tour work for us.

L-R: Enrico, Marie, Claudia (almost hidden), Katja, Rebecca, John (kneeling), Gwendal. Allen is taking the picture. Behind us are the famous bronze geese of Sarlat.