Day 5 – Bergerac to Belvès

September 23^rd, 2002

brilliant forests of red, yellow and gold

The day started off cold, damn cold. After pitching down the tent and getting some breakfast we left Bergerac and started riding along beautiful, quiet backcountry roads. The air was crisp, the leaves on the trees were changing colors to red, orange and gold. We had the rode to ourselves. It was peaceful and beautiful, it was a great ride! We arrived in Monpazier, a bastide town. This is another “un des plus beaux villages” and well deserving of that title. It is stunning and very much worth the trip.  Spiros is passionate about photography and he was in photo heaven. The beautiful main square called Place des Cornieres is a must.  After several hours exploring this tiny little village, we left and headed for Belvès. We hadn’t heard much of Belvès and were quite pleasantly surprised when we arrived, it was quite pretty. The town is perched up on a hill and offers some great views of the surrounding landscape. The old fortified core has some interesting old buildings and bell towers. Though we had originally planned to stay at a campground a few km away, we opted to stay in town so that we can spend some more time exploring this charming little town.