Sarlat-la-Canéda is a medieval town that developed
around a large Benedictine abbey. A wealthy trade centre during the Renaissance,
it was later forgotten by history thus remaining essentially unchanged. It is
today the French town that boasts the largest concentration of historical
buildings by the square meter.
The town’s central streets are car-free, the scars of
modern life are accurately hidden, and night comes with the glow of gas-lit
lanterns. As in medieval times, Sarlat comes alive with sprawling weekly
markets and imaginative street entertainments – jugglers, magic acts, organ
grinders and so on.
People tend to be sensitive, often dogmatic, about boundaries
- in particular those not set in stone. Historical Périgord – coinciding with the
modern province of Dordogne – is loosely divided into four color-coded parts:
green for its bucolic scenery in the north; white for its chalky hillsides in
the center; purple for its vineyards in the south-west; and black for the
thickness of its forests in the south-east.
When you look at a map the colors blend at their
margins, making it hard at times to determine where to locate a particular
village. And yet realtors are very tranchant
in that regard. There is only one Périgord they speak of – black! – and the Sarlat
area is its epicenter, home to the most spectacular course of the Dordogne River,
to the most impressive castles, to the most beautiful villages, and the most
sensational food.
I realize that we skirted Sarlat during our earlier Périgord
years – especially in summer – because of its tourist appeal. La Placette Haute
was found in frenzy for authenticity and seclusion. It was therefore odd to
consider buying in Sarlat, even if we were now aiming at something a bit less
‘undiscovered’. Yet when a hotel
particulier of the 16th century, tucked in one of the narrow streets
of the prized protected enclave, came on the market we could not help reviewing
our criteria.
Dan saw the building first although he could not visit
entirely because the agent did not have all the keys. ‘There is no garden,’ he
told me on the phone. ‘But it has
a delightful balcony large enough for a table for four.’ We visited together on
Easter Monday when the town was showing off in spring colors and swarming with the
first flow of the season. As we studied the composite façade – slightly curving
along the street and defensively compact at its end – and roamed around the vacant
rooms inside I was taking photos. A good sign compared with previous house
visits when we would exchange gloomy looks behind the agent’s back.
The honey color of the stones cut from the local
quarries is the house’s warmest welcome. The irregular pattern of its tall
paned windows opens with an impressionist effect of the wavy glass onto the
stony lauze roofs and the spire of
the cathedral. No garden, but the balcony solidly resting on medieval
corbels and fenced with a wrought iron railing of naïvely entwined hearts is
where the house takes a breath of fresh air and mixes with the smells of nearby
bakeries and the cries of swallows.
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