His latest obsession is crystallized roses, violets, jasmine, and other flowers, which he preserves via a patented process that maintains their organoleptic and aesthetic properties. I find him in his factory on the outskirts of the already outskirty village of St.-Geniès, where he makes his unusual flavors of ice cream with local ingredients (goat cheese, foie gras, chestnut). He’s corrected my French so many times that I call him mon prof, my teacher. My go-to guy for Périgord and language questions is Roland Manouvrier, an artisanal ice-cream maker, whom I first met in 2006. Like many affairs, mine began with words. If you’ve not been to a market in France yet, then arranging your visit to Brantôme to coincide with this market wouldn’t be a bad idea.īeyond Brantôme, to the North, is the expansive and beautiful Perigord Limousin Natural Park, home to countless quaint villages, chateaux and rolling woodland.Please be respectful of copyright.
The abbey is of course a must visit, conveniently also housing the local tourism office, where an audio guide to Brantôme can be picked up for a small fee.īrantôme is also home to one of the largest weekly markets in the area, held on a Friday morning throughout the year. The central part, on the island, has wonderful little back streets to wander, with an endless variety of cafes and shops to while away your time. So what is there to see in Brantôme today? Well, the town itself is incredibly picturesque. It has been, for hundreds of years, a religious destination, not least due to it being on the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela. The Abbey on the river is perhaps a little more magnificent than the early Benedictines may have expected (they used to live in the caves behind where the abbey currently stands, so any actual building is an improvement), but the overall feel of the town is that of a peaceful place that time has largely passed by. Various wars, plagues, Viking invasions, English occupations and French revolutions later, and Brantôme today is probably not too much different from how it was a few hundred years ago.
It was the Benedictine Monks who were largely responsible for the town of Brantôme as it is today (although the Romans did leave some street names behind), as it was they who started the rather magnificent Abbey of Brantôme, way back in 769, with the help of Charlemagne, the then King of France. After the Celts came the Romans, followed by early Christians and Benedictine Monks. Early Celtic people also left their mark, giving the town its name, which is derived from the Celtic words for water and rocks. Which Brantôme doesn’t.īrantôme has a long and rich history, with evidence of prehistoric people on the rock overhangs which surround a part of the city. It also has a thriving glass industry, where further Venetian parallels could be drawn, were one to be needing to be clutching at Venetian straws. Three bridges cross this river to the town centre, which is on a little island of its own. It does sit enclosed by a loop of the river Dronne, which is perhaps where an over keen tourism official may have drawn a Venetian parallel. In the northerly part of the Dordogne region of France, on the river Dromme, sits the town of Brantôme.īrantôme is often referred to as the Venice of France, and having visited, I can confirm that it isn’t that much like Venice, and really doesn’t need to sell itself as such to be a worthwhile place to visit.īrantôme has charming backstreets, an ancient abbey, caves that were home to troglodytic eighth century monks and stunning river frontage: but Venice it isn’t.īrantôme is the Brantôme of France, and that is enough.
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