Friday, October 06, 2006

St Leon sur Vezere

Back in July we had an old freind of Jude visit us, Jill. As she was here for only a few days, we decided to take her out and show her some of the sights. This village, St Leon, is about 8 miles from our house and is unspoilt by time. The village sits on the river Vezere, a very interesting river as there are many prehistoric sites dotted along the length of the river. As can be seen from hte picture above, the river has cut into the rock over many years, this has made many caves in the limestone providing shelter for prehistoric man.
This building in the main square of the village is probably only a couple of hundred years old, but it has the character of the village. It faces the church.

The church is supposed to built on Roman foundations and is a very beutiful building. As with most churches in this part of France, it is not surrounded by a grave yard. Most of these villages go back to Roman times and it was the custom hten to bury the dead outside the commune. The interiour is very plain but has a fantastic atmosphere, and showns the history of the building.
The whole village is full of winding small streets, but is still alive as can be seen from the fact that the residents manage to get thier cars to the houses. There are a number of small restaurants within the village which serve very good quality food for what seems like a very small price compared with England.
St Leon even has a small campsite on the edge of the village, next to the river. The river is very clean and people swim and play in it. On the other side of the river there is a canoe hire business, one can hire from here and decide how far to go, they collect you after your trip and bring you back to your car in a minibus.

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