(During) Home Exchange 2 – South to Périgueux, Cazeneuve, and some France Passion vineyards

We returned home on time from Lac de St. Mathieu to say goodbye to our first guests, and to begin to prepare our home for the arrival of our second visiting Home Exchange family.  They arrived punctually the next morning and we welcomed them all into our newly-cleaned home.  After a speedy tour and basic overview of how to look after our pool, we left them to settle in and enjoy.  We headed south out of the ‘Shire’ (Haute Vienne to others) to our first planned stop at Périgueux.  We were last here on the day we bought our French house, and were then a little distracted by calls, so it was good to return and see it afresh.  It was a Sunday morning and we thought the town would be closed and quiet, but it was mid-festival and there were many places open, with crowds of people wandering around.  It was as beautiful as previously, although decorated with millions of pieces of coloured plastic.

We doodled south along the sleepy backroads of Dordogne, to reach Domaine de la Lande, on the outskirts of Monbazillac.  This was a France Passion vineyard where we parked up adjacent to neat lines of vines, were graciously welcomed and invited to a tasting session at 6pm.  After a lazy afternoon we arrived into the quirky tasting room, site of a thousand fun nights.  A memory wall was covered with photos of camping cars arriving there for many years, under all country flags.  Our host was a fantastic character, explaining all about their wines with humour, passion and vigour.  His grandfather was Albert Camus, but not the famous one.  He was the fourth generation of winemakers to run this domaine, his son is now in charge of the main business (he still loves to take the fun-filled dégustations) and his 18yo grand-daughter is in line to be the future proprietor, the sixth generation.

There were four couples from other vans in the same tasting.  Max the dog, visiting along with one camping-car couple, was adopted by us (or us by him) for the evening.  After eight or nine small glasses of varied tasting, trying to keep track of the relentless French chatter and variance in wines was impossible, so I zoned out and just enjoyed the cheery atmosphere.  In the morning we got up early to run a quiet 10km loop of the local vineyards, but a few kilometres in Nicky felt a little light-headed and dizzy, so we gently walked back.  We saw the same beautiful views, breathed the same morning freshness, all just at a slower pace, allowing more time to appreciate it.  Once returned we bought a few bottles from the store and said our goodbyes to our gracious host, glad for the fun experience.

We kept on moving south, passing vines and sunflowers and stubble fields recently cut for hay, until we moved into the region of plum trees and walnuts.  We soon reached familiar territory, as we were back in Allez-et-Cazeneuve, to visit now old friends Monica & Ken.  We hadn’t seen them since their visit to ours last September, and several other visits had been cancelled due to complications or weather, so it was great to be able to make it work this time.  Soon after our arrival we set out for a gentle countryside walk around some well-worn paths, taking in the views and the reddening sky as we caught up on news.  We cooled off in their pool with a glass of Ken’s wonderful home-brewed beer, ate beautifully roasted home-grown vegetables with succulent fish and had a fun evening of catch-up chat.

The morning took us out for a 32km cycle around the local countryside, mostly on off-road trails we never found ourselves, even during the two months we house-sat for K&M back in the winter of 2018.  We were not feeling very bike fit, having ignored them for months in favour of running, but were happy to see we could keep up and really enjoyed the route.  We ventured around the perimeter of a huge corn field and found ourselves being showered in river water under the gaze of a giant irrigation frame.  We visited a windmill on a hill in Montpezat before returning through Dolmayrac to finish our loop.  After lunch we had archery.  Ken managed to place an arrow right in the centre of the bullseye, from over 80m away.  He might claim it as skill, but it was a glorious fluke, and with 40 arrows fired between us we only managed to hit the target four times in total.  But this one shot was worth remembering.

We all had a cultured hour’s downtime, us listening to Ken’s classical guitar playing, Monica playing piano in another room, me sketching (practising faces and features) and Nicky undertaking another self-led lesson in Italian.  Rested and contented after our creative pause, it wasn’t long before we were all back at the poolside for a continuation of cooling swims accompanied by trays of tasty beers.  More fabulous food and a little too much wine followed, the chat increasing in volume and timbre with each new glass filled.  It rained heavily overnight, but was dry and bright again by morning.  Nicky & I had a morning run with Ken, a hilly 8km, where the trees dripped on us like showers as we passed under them, with muddy ground underfoot and long grasses tickling our legs.  It was good to shake off that hint of hangover from the previous evening’s excess, and it always feels good to have your prescribed exercise for the day completed before breakfast.  Ken and Monica had their own Home Exchange visitors arriving later that afternoon, so we headed off to give them time to prepare, with fresh aubergines and home-made chilli sauce in hand, and the knowledge it will be late spring 2020 before we have opportunity to meet up again.

After a supermarket shop and more beautiful country lanes, we arrived at a France Passion vineyard near Blasimon that afternoon, to be greeted by a huge Great Pyrenees mastiff, the same breed as on the farm at Buron de Fages.  After meeting the owner who would be out later for a marché nocturne, we arranged a time for a tasting.  He was clearly busy and a little stressed, but still had time to gift us a handful of plump, ripe tomatoes from his garden, unprompted, which we could roast with Ken’s aubergine.  At 5pm sharp we had a few quick tasters, bought ourselves a bottle of rosé and a dry white in exchange for our night’s stay, before leaving him to his evening plans.  We settled in for a gentle read and relax in the warm summer evening air.  Late,  as we sipped tea and thought about sleep, we watched a young deer walk through the fully-laden vines very near to our van; a calm, serene view.

Our next stop was at the Grand Etang de Jermaye, a lake we know well from our time in our house-sit near to Riberac.  Within moments of our arrival we decanted to the beach and spent our morning reading and relaxing, interspersed with some longer swims.  Each time we see Monica & Ken we are reminded that we should be swimming more, as they are both passionate and talented long distance swimmers, and they inspire us to push ourselves.  Well toasted, we moved on to Saint-Front-de-Riviere, solely because the aire looked nice in the Camper-Contact app, and we found it to be so.  We had a short walk and found an accessible stretch of trickling river.  It was inevitable; to cool off from the sticky drive, we both stripped and sat down in the shallow flowing water, like in a cold bath.  It was so refreshing and invigorating, and immediately restorative.  We drip-dried and dressed, returning to the aire with cheeky grins, feeling satisfyingly naughty.

There was a lot of noisy palaver later, when many more vans arrived and spent hours wrangling ways to connect themselves to one of the two free electricity points provided.  We stayed well away from it all, and pondered over some motorhomers mini-obsessions with having power, especially free power, at all costs.  After a lazy morning and another chilly river dip, we returned north to Lac de St. Mathieu, originally planning to overnight there.  After an afternoon on the beach, swimming and toasting ourselves, we decided to move on.  There was a weekend event on and looked like being a noisy spot, and as it never hurts to be closer to home, we moved on to overnight at Pageas, our local aire, only 4km from our home.  Only the thumping rattle of falling acorns occasionally landing on our metal roof disturbed our rest, and we were up and ready to say goodbye to our second Home Exchange family.

A&N x

(During) Home Exchange 1 – a 10-day circular loop around Limousin

After our meet & greet with our first home exchange family we headed north, as we had not yet visited the two nearby towns of Bellac and Le Dorat.  We stopped in each in turn and walked the historic centres.  Both had their beauty and charms but the day was already mid 30s and our appetite for historic sights was sadly lacking.  We needed water to hide under, so we quickly scooted east to Saint Pardoux lake, a place we know well.  A lazy day of swimming and relaxing on the beach followed, and we overnighted in the extensive car-park, empty once the day-trippers had fled.  Next morning, to avoid the worst of the days’ heat, we rose at 7.30am for a run around the lake shore paths along beautiful woodland trails.  We had run parts of this before on previous trips, so should have known the way, but still took a wrong turn and missed off part of our route, cutting the morning run to only 9km.

We moved on east to Lake Vassiviere, one year on since our first SwimRun there last July.  Rather than search for a hidden place to wild camp, we entered the paid aire (€5 per night) in Auphelle so we could have some shade.  Our day was mostly swimming, reading and lying supine in the shade, like most others.  It was a little cooler the next morning, so we undertook the 30km cycle around the perimeter of the lake.  It was on bumpy, root-tangled tracks, great fun downhill but more work than expected uphill. To keep cool we stopped often and punctuated the ride with three long swims in the refreshing lake.  It was a great reminder of both the scale and easy accessibility of the lake, a wonderful facility for all to enjoy.  Outside of the beach in Auphelle, and one at Pierrefitte, there were only tiny pockets of people scattered around the perimeter, it never feeling busy even in the busiest period of  high summer.

From here we drove south, stopping on a partial whim to climb to a tower on Mont Bessou, offering panoramic views of the Corrèze countryside.  We climbed the steps of the metal tower to enjoy the view, before following the informative route des champignons back through the forest to Benny. Soon after we arrived in Meymac, stopping at Lake Séchemailie to visit the beach and enjoy many swims to escape the heat of the day.  We watched an English school group competing in water based games and races involving kayaks, SUPs and canoes. We were in this area as we had eyed up a 12km trail race near here, in Liginiac, but we were feeling lethargic and fatigued, so decided to forgo it.  Preparing our house for Home Exchange guests had taken more time and effort than expected. Back at Benny, we rigged up blankets and tarpaulins to our awning in an attempt to create shade, still overheating in the canicule.

We kept heading south, the roads becoming smaller and smaller, but only very rarely did we see another vehicle.  We had one quick stop to take in a classic view, seen often on the tourist literature for the Corrèze region.  High above the Dordogne river stood steep-sided rounded mounds blanketed thick with lush trees, the dark Dordogne river snaking serenely between multiple interlocking fat fingers of jutting hillside.  Soon after we stopped at a scruffy farm French Passion producer, called Buron de Fages.  They were a producer of fine cheeses, and we bought a few tasty morsels after a quick sampling.  As soon as we arrived back into Benny we had the first rain of this trip, a noisy downpour.  The air was definitely cooler and less close afterwards, a welcome change from the oppressive heat.

We walked a loop of local country lanes later with two of the farm boys, a 13 yo and 6 yo, and three of their many dogs.  Their dogs were all massive Great Pyrenees mastiffs, with long white coats covering thickly muscular bodies, but incredibly docile and passive.  The 6 yo was mercilessly bullied by his older brother (who likely had the same from his older siblings) but he took it well with a resigned smile, even when de-trousered, thrown deep into the hedge and bombarded with leaves.  Neither spoke any English and had no desire to learn, as they only know this life and want to continue to work on the farm their whole lives, as they do now.  Later in the evening we watched the older brother carry a very young donkey foal around on his shoulders, we could only imagine that he was showing off to his younger brother that he could.  It’s a very different world in the deeply rural places of France.

Woken early by the normal machinations of a busy farm, we were soon away. The rains had returned overnight and brought grey, smudgy clouds with them.  Under this dull grey, but dry, blanket we passed through Argentat to reach Farm Lanteuil, A France Passion producer, where the rains began again with vigour.  We parked in a grassy field with a friendly white horse as constant company outside our window.  After a quick chat to the proprietor, we arranged a time to enjoy tastings of their various jams, tarts and fruit juices.  Another camping-car had appeared and that gentleman, travelling alone, joined in with our tasting session.  With his chat and questions the conversations soon became fast and complicated, making it a struggle to keep up with everything.  French listening is still beyond me when it involves several people talking, especially if they are animated and excited – Improvement is slow in coming.

We left in search of services, and as it was near our chosen route, we decided it would be simple to stop off in the quiet village of Gignac, a place we had stayed recently on our way to Provence.  But to our great surprise this sleepy village had been transformed, and we were almost consumed by it.   There were hundreds of cars and thousands of tents in fields just outside the centre, as we arrived into the mass of humanity that was a music concert.  We crawled through the crowds of pedestrians towards the aire, hoping we could still, possibly, quickly service and go.  A friendly volunteer said that would be fine, a barrier was tweaked across and we rushed in before his mind changed.  But the aire had been taken over for the private use of the performers, and we should never have been allowed in.  Nicky stopped and I jumped out immediately to empty our loo.  I was oblivious as she was surrounded by screaming staff telling us we can’t be in here and need to get out, now!  Whilst Nicky deflected them I managed to empty our WC canister successfully, but as we tried to make a rushed exit, our way was blocked by the arrival of a huge touring bus.  It was UB40, and we were in their place.  A quick manoeuvre sideways, their giant multi-storey bus cruised past and we made our daring escape, back through the crowds and away.  A rather unexpected and stressful palaver for all.

Relieved, as at least we had a usable toilet, we made it to the Jardins D’Eyrignac, where we overnighted in their beautiful, peaceful car-park and enjoyed the open part of their gardens.  We could pick up their free wifi and this, coupled with a VPN, allowed us to catch up on the Tour de France highlights on ITV 4.  We felt a little guilty for this as we never entered the gardens proper (it was €11 each).  The morning took us to Lac du Causse, where we stopped briefly to do a reccy for future stops, then on to Ayen.  We had looked at the aire in Ayen once before in passing, but never stayed there.  We knew it was nice and suspected it may be busy, but there were no other vans and no signs of any during our quiet evening.  We sun-bathed and read for a few blissful hours and later, after dinner, enjoyed a slow walk around the village and nearby country lanes, passing a few beautiful homes and chateaux on our way.

The morning sun lead us to Saint Jean-de-Côle, a short way west of Thiviers.  We viewed their beautiful chateau and market square, flanked by an 11^th century bridge.  That afternoon we enjoyed copious free tastings in a beautiful distillery shop and came away with a bottle.  We hadn’t planned to stay here, but found we had no will to move on, so settled in for a long, lazy evening.  Next morning we had a visit to Nontron, where a Knife Festival was in full flow.  The town has a long history of knife production, and one square had demonstrations of traditional blacksmithing techniques, and a central museum had rooms filled with hundreds of knives of various types, lengths and uses.

From here we parked up at the Lac de St. Mathieu, in time for lunch.  We spent a few hours on the beach, dipping in the water and reading, then walked the easy 2.5km loop of the lake to stretch our legs.  Later we had the urge to run the same perimeter lap, to see what time we could do for a short sprint run, just managing to dip under 10 minutes.  Even over such a short distance I was still averaging a much slower pace than top marathon runners do for the whole race.  We were only 20 minutes from home now, and we had arranged to see off our first Home Exchange guests at 10am the following morning, so we were perfectly suited to return in time.  Only the arrival of another camping car at midnight, followed by chatting until 1am, broke the tranquillity of our peaceful last night.

A&N x

What, exactly, is Home Exchange…?

We previously mentioned that we would be welcoming Home Exchange visitors to our French home this July and August.  But what exactly is Home Exchange?  There are several main sites that cater for those who wish to swap their home, but we will concentrate on the one we are signed up to – homeexchange.com.

For the uninitiated, here is a quick overview of how it works.

In the same vein as House-sitting or Workaway projects, Home Exchange is a centralised web-based hub bringing together like-minded travellers and holiday-makers who hope to, well, exchange their homes for short stays.  The concept began as a simple reciprocal swap, stating that you visit my house and I’ll visit yours.  This was a good start, allowing members to search, find and contact others who may be interested to swap their home for a fixed holiday period, allowing both families to experience a different place, an alternative culture.  Through its success, this then grew into non-reciprocal exchanges, sometimes between hemispheres, where each participant would take it in turn to visit the other in the optimum month for their visit.  The flexibility and ease of finding an exchange was growing.

But this still proved limiting; what if I, based in France, wanted to visit Norway, but the Norwegians wanted to visit Scotland?  And the people in the Scotland wanted to visit Japan.  And the Japanese family wanted to visit France?  This was where Home Exchange truly became a global enterprise, opening up a wealth of opportunities for members.  After experimenting with fixed price ‘balloons’, tokens from a received exchange that could later be ‘spent’ on a future exchange of your choice, the Exchange system became value-driven and fully flexible.  Each home, once described in detail by the owner, is given a value rating by the Home Exchange algorithm, listed in ‘Guest Points’.  This depends on location, facilities, square meterage, number of bedrooms, desirability of region etc.. This is tweakable by the owner, within defined parameters, but generally derives a fair figure for the home.  Then other members can search the worldwide database and find a property of their liking, then request an exchange.

In setting up your account and building your profile, you are gifted starting guest points to allow you to participate fully in the community.  From then on, guest points can predominantly be gained by hosting exchanges in your home, or from introducing new members.  Your accumulated points can be spent by finding exchanges that suit your travel plans, contacting the owners to see if they are amenable to the exchange, and finalising through the website.  For full members, the exchange offers advice, insurance and other services that can arbitrate any issues that arise, ensuring exchanges go smoothly once agreed. The value-rating has been a little controversial, but is helpful for us as we are offering a three-bed family home with a pool, but searching for one-bed apartments or small terrace houses that are perfectly sufficient for us, meaning we can often afford two nights away for every one night we host visitors.

All our exchanges to date have been families with children, either four or five visitors on each occasion.  We have enjoyed welcoming them to our home, briefly explaining where things are and how they work, then driving off in Benny hoping they enjoy their stay.  As everyone involved is making the same commitment and offering the same trust to those invited into their home, the community is quite tight-knit and made up of similar-minded folks.  It can be quite a leap of trust to allow strangers to live within your walls, to trust them with your personal items, your private spaces.  You must always remember that the same trust is being offered to you on your visit to another home, and mutual respect for person, property and privacy is paramount throughout.  It is a mindful leap of faith.

The advantages greatly outweigh the potential negatives, as we have already secured six house exchanges for the coming winter, using points gained from our July/August hostings, all in Australia.  We are taking an extended trip to avoid the cold winter months, a slow travel or perhaps more accurately described as an extended residence of a month in each of three cities; Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne.  We hope to secure a couple more house exchanges to complete our plans, ensuring all our accommodation needs are met during the entire period away.  Several of our future hosts have been friendly and open, in constant touch, and we feel already that we have made friends down under.  We are looking forward to getting under the glossy tourist veneer of each city in turn and, with more time than normal, gaining a deeper understanding of each.

Home exchange is the vehicle that has made such a trip possible for us.

A&N x

[PS – If anybody is considering joining homeexchange.com please let us know so that we can formally refer you, as both yourselves and us would receive extra guest points when joining. Many thanks…)