The Dordogne

Rural, but not remote.

Sol du Mazel sits in the commune of Saint-Pompont — a proper Périgord village with a boulangerie, a Romanesque church and a Viva supermarket, fifteen minutes on foot down the old footpath from the property. The kind of village most visitors drive past without stopping.

Everything larger is close. Domme, the cliff-top bastide with extraordinary views over the river valley, is eight kilometres north. Sarlat — the finest medieval town in France, most people think — is twenty kilometres and twenty-five minutes away. The Dordogne river itself, with its canoe hire points and its sweep of medieval castles, is fifteen minutes by car.