On those relatively rare occasions when Jan and I do have Champagne with breakfast, we usually mix the bubbly wine with orange juice. But yesterday morning we discovered that our OJ supply was at rock bottom, and so we improvised. I added a few drops of crème de cassis to the bottom of our flutes, and then filled the glasses with G.H. Mumm Cordon Rouge — turning a coupe de Champagne into a Kir Royale. This somewhat sweetened Champagne cocktail went very well with our smoked salmon omelette.

But that was just the beginning of the celebrations. Later in the morning we headed off to Le Vieux Logis in Trémolat, less than an hour’s drive west of Daglan. We have eaten at the Michelin-starred Le Vieux Logis several times this year (one of our friends in Daglan suggested that the restaurant should put up a plaque to recognize us), and I’ve also posted reviews several times — first on January 9 of this year, in “Feasting at Le Vieux Logis.” But we had never before stayed at the hotel, which is a Relais & Châteaux property.

Yesterday we arrived in plenty of time to relax in the salon in front of an open fire while our room was prepared, and then had time to unpack. Once all that was done, it was time for lunch. I decided that we would begin with Champagne, and then figured that we might as well drink Champagne for the whole meal, since lunch at Le Vieux Logis is done tapas-style, with lots of small dishes. So I ordered a bottle of Laurent-Perrier Brut.

And what a lunch — 10 dishes for 46 euros per person. I realize that I’ve shown some of these dishes before, but I think they’re all worth a look.

No. 1. Let’s start with the amuse-bouche — which indeed was quite amusing, because it was set out on a bed of imitation grass, to suggest a picnic on the lawn. (A real picnic was not about to happen, because it was raining. Of course.) So here’s our first taste treat, incorporating a dish of green olives, several slices of duck sausage, and a sort of spring roll made of thin slices of salmon wrapped around greens, with coriander oil:

The amuse-bouche — a picnic tray.

No. 2. Next came duck foie gras done two ways — a delicious dish of foie gras crème brûlée, and then a mousse of foie gras served with a mango purée. Here it is:

Our foie gras entrée.

No. 3. The third dish to be served was our only disappointment of the meal. It consisted of a small piece of roast rouget (a Mediterranean fish also called red mullet), sitting atop a bed of saffron gelée — but served cold. As I said to Jan, this one was far better in the execution than in the concept. While it was well prepared, our taste buds rebelled against the fact that the fish was cold, when logic was telling us it should have been a hot dish. So we didn’t really enjoy this one, although it does look good:

Our only disappointment.

No. 4. Then came another cold fish dish, but one that really works. It’s a modern, light version of pickled herring and potato salad, and we’ve had this preparation before at Le Vieux Logis. Once again, we enjoyed the thin slivers of herring and the small bites of potato on a herring-flavoured cream base:

This attractive dish features herring.

No. 5. Our herring dish was followed by a hot fish course. This featured a sort of sausage made of slices of sturgeon, positioned on a bed of pea purée and fresh peas (petit pois) with tarragon. While I enjoyed the sturgeon, I absolutely loved the peas, and understand why the French are so taken with this vegetable. The properly cooked peas are so far removed from over-cooked or canned peas that they might come from another planet. Here’s the dish:

Sturgeon and properly prepared peas.

No. 6. Then came the first of two super-stars of the meal. This was the meat course, with a slice of incredibly tender and juicy roast lamb, served with fava beans and hearts of artichoke and a goat-cheese ravioli. (Champagne confession No. 1: We had a very enjoyable Pomerol, by the glass, with this course, since I didn’t think the bubbly would go well with the lamb.) The lamb was as close to perfect as we’ve eaten:

Lamb was the star, but the veggies were a great supporting cast.

No. 7. The cheese course followed. My cheese dish was a disc of melted brébis cheese (a brébis is a type of sheep) on a thin pastry crust, served with black cherries. Because of Jan’s gluten-intolerance, she was given a selection of three cheeses, with no pastry crust. Here’s my cheese plate:

My cheese course at Le Vieux Logis.

No. 8. Now we began to get into the desserts. This next dish was the second super-star of the meal, after the lamb dish. This elaborate concoction had a crispy meringue shell that had been filled with a compote of finely chopped strawberries, and on top of the shell was an incredibly delicious ice cream of strawberries and basil. A few fresh strawberries and a thin line of whipped cream completed the dish. Have a look:

Strawberries and basil made for a great marriage of flavours.

No. 9. My next dessert was a baba (a rich, sweet cake) served with Armagnac and topped with whipped cream. Light, sweet, delicious:

Baba with Armagnac.

No. 10. Finishing up our amazing anniversary lunch was this dish of chocolate cream with vanilla mousse — smooth and rich:

A final, rich ending to our anniversary lunch.

Okay, you’re thinking: Is that all? Shouldn’t there be more? And the answer is: Of course!

So, after a suitable break, including a rainy drive into the nearby rainy town of Lalinde, some shopping, and a nice cup of Earl Grey tea, it was time for dinner. So in the evening we headed across the street to the down-to-earth restaurant owned by Le Vieux Logis, Le Bistro d’en Face. (I think the bistro is one of the very best “normal” — that is, not fine-dining — restaurants in the GDA.)

There we had a wonderful meal, of course starting with a glass of Champagne. (Champagne confession No. 2: For our main courses, Jan ordered magret of duck while I had a delicious navarin of lamb, which included a great selection of perfectly cooked vegetables, from new potatoes to leeks to white asparagus to fresh peas. So I stopped ordering Champagne, and instead bought a bottle of 2010 Château Les Combes, a tasty Lussac-Saint-Emilion.) And then it was back to Le Vieux Logis for the evening.

Finally, you may be wondering about my gift to Jan for our 25th.  Since silver is what the 25th anniversary is all about, I figured that a visit to La Goutte Noire in Daglan would be in order. As you learned from my posting “A real jewel of Daglan,” on May 9, the local artisan Sophie Arnaud makes all the jewelry she sells, using fine silver as well as semi-precious stones. And in fact, Jan had bought a silver bracelet made by Sophie a few years ago.

So to add to Jan’s collection, I bought a silver necklace that would complement her bracelet, and that’s what Jan wore yesterday. Here’s the necklace and the bracelet:

Jan’s new necklace surrounds her bracelet.

And today? No Champagne, a light lunch at home, and a very light dinner. But there’s always tomorrow. And tomorrow,  we’re off to lunch with friends at Daglan’s own Le Petit Paris. After all, we don’t want to give our systems too much of a jolt.

The range of  apéros is fairly wide. The time spent can be relatively short, and the nibblies fairly mundane — salted nuts, pretzels and so on.  Then there is a mid-range of apéros, with more substantial nibblies like devilled eggs, cocktail sausages, and cold shrimp. And finally there is the kind of evening we had last night, at the beautiful holiday home of friends, high on a hill above Daglan and looking out over the green countryside. For that kind of apéros, the event lasts most of the evening, and the nibblies are much more elaborate.

Last night our hostess set a very high standard for the treats she served with our drinks — ranging from spiced shrimp to a hot blue cheese dip to smoked salmon on cucumber slices to sunny-side-up quail’s eggs. Have a look:

A stunning array of treats.

I didn’t photograph the drinks that went along with all the lovely food. But we (there were six of us in total) did not hold back, and so the Aperol Spritzes, the red wine and the white wine flowed, along with interesting discussions, quite a few jokes, and a lot of laughter.  As my late father-in-law often said, when asked if he would care for a drink: “Any given amount.”

In any case, that was the “before” part. The “after” part came this morning, when I decided that I didn’t feel like leaping out of bed at first light. If you get my drift.

Rather, my morning consisted of a slow and somewhat steady progression through eating breakfast, shaving, and checking out what was new on the Worldwide Interweb. And then I realized that I should follow the brave lead of my wife Jan, and get outdoors to clear my head, stimulate the blood-flow, and (if nothing else) develop an appetite for lunch.

Jan had been itching for a nice long walk, and was frustrated this morning when rain started to spatter down (again). But then the rain stopped, the sun came out, and Jan headed out the door.

Eventually, I followed — but on my hybrid bike, comfortably kitted out in my best Dark Knight outfit. Here I am on the trail that runs up from Daglan to Castelnaud (in case you’re wondering, Jan took the picture, because our paths crossed while I was heading out from Daglan and she was returning from her walk):

Here I am, on the road again. Le Peyruzel is atop the hill at the upper left.

The day was cool, and at times there was a pretty strong breeze, reminiscent of early April more than late May. But it was good to be out and about, enjoying the flowers and flowering trees and shrubs along the road. Like these poppies:

At this time of year, poppies are pretty much all over the place.

And this explosion of yellow flowers was another lovely view on this morning’s ride:

Yellow flowers along the road.

In the end, I didn’t set any records for distance cycled or speed attained. But my head was cleared nicely, and my appetite returned. Which is a good thing, because Jan is just about done preparing lunch. À table!

As I’m sure you’ve discovered yourself, almost nothing is provided to the consumer these days ready to use. Instead, you get a large cardboard box jammed with various kinds of protective padding, several jangly plastic bags filled with screws and nuts and bolts, and a wide assortment of parts — from tiny to huge — that you are expected to assemble, following directions that have almost no words and lots of tiny diagrams.

So it was with our Shark, made (ostensibly) by the Fitness Doctor.

In case you’re wondering — “Why a rowing machine?” — the answer is that my wife Jan and I both like to exercise, but aren’t in love with walking or cycling when the weather is cold, or rainy, or both. So we have a stationary bike on the top floor of our house, which I have been using most days, and we did have a rowing machine located in our TV room/den on the ground floor. But the rowing machine broke, and trying to repair it was virtually impossible, so we gave up and ordered a new, heavier-duty rower: the Shark.

Naturally it has a display panel powered by two small batteries that is supposed to generate information like the number of strokes you’ve completed, the time you’ve spent rowing, and so on. Here’s what that part looked like, resting on a coffee table before we mounted it on the rower:

The control panel of the rower, before installation.

I should point out that this machine weighs a ton. (Okay, probably not actually a ton, but a lot.) This means that assembly was a two-person job, primarily because one person had to lift various parts of the machine off the floor so that the other person could put in the necessary screws or whatever.

In short, this Shark of ours is a very sturdy beast, as you can see from some of the major parts shown below, surrounding Jan:

Jan is surrounded by parts of our new rower.

And here it is, almost completely put together.

The rower is coming together!

Finally, here is our Shark, ready to use, after not much more than an hour of assembly time:

The Shark, fully assembled and ready for a workout.

Not surprisingly, both Jan and I used the rowing machine this morning, and both got quite a good workout in a fairly short time. When I say “not surprisingly,” it’s because the weather this morning was rainy once again.

When Jan went out at one point for a bit of shopping, she chatted with one local gentleman who said that he’s never experienced a worse spring in all of his 86 years in Daglan.

Surely the rain can’t go on forever. Can it?

But of course, since we are who we are, we also had our minds focused on where we might be eating lunch. The obvious answer was l’Essentiel, the only restaurant in Périgueux to have earned a Michelin star. I wrote about l’Essentiel some two years ago, in “A (much) brighter day in the Dordogne’s capital city,” posted February 9, 2011. At the time, I raved about the place.

However, since we weren’t sure of our timing for the drive and our errands, we hadn’t made a reservation. And when we arrived at l’Essentiel, the hostess told us there was no room at the inn (without a reservation), so we asked her to recommend a restaurant. Her answer was a place called Le Grain de Sel, which my wife Jan had already noticed in our 2013 edition of Michelin’s hotel and restaurant guide. (It’s a book we often check before leaving the house.)

The hostess at l’Essentiel then proceeded to give us the elaborate directions for finding Le Grain de Sel: up the street here, turn left, turn right, look for a real estate office, turn left, then turn right.

And here’s how it all turned out.

Michelin’s view. Our Michelin guide rates Le Grain de Sel with two sets of “couverts” for comfort (each couvert is a crossed knife and fork, and the maximum is five couverts) as well as a Bib Gourmand symbol, for “good food at moderate prices.” (This is exactly the same rating that Michelin gives to Daglan’s own Le Petit Paris.) The guide says that Le Grain de Sel’s chef moved to Périgueux from St-Emilion, and adds that it’s a place où les produits de la mer sont à l’honneur — that is, where  seafood is honoured.

Location. The restaurant was not terribly easy to find, but we managed. It’s on rue des Farges in old Périgueux, on a cobbled street that’s little more than an alleyway. The good news (I suppose) is that it’s fairly near some nice clothing shops, if you’re interested in extra-curricular activities. Here’s a look at the restaurant’s exterior:

The restaurant is placed on a narrow cobbled street.

Inside. Once we were in the door, we liked the restaurant immediately. This is a small, intimate restaurant, but with a decent amount of breathing room between tables. The décor is a nice mix of old and new, and the tone is sophisticated. They do play music, but at a nice low level (old jazz, Louis Armstrong, that sort of thing). You can hear yourself think, you can hear your partner talking, no need to shout. Bless them. Here’s a look at the restaurant from our table, before the place started to fill in:

A quiet, sophisticated interior.

The look. Here’s a picture of the simple, easy-to-follow menu, whose cover intermingles the name of the restaurant with the name of the chef, Alain Banier. I think it shows some elegant typographic touches:

The cover of the menu at Le Grain de Sel.

The amuse bouche. As we enjoyed our kirs, before ordering lunch, we were served a small dish of particularly smooth rillettes, along with some small toasts. Once we had ordered — Jan and I each chose the 31-euro menu, which includes the usual three courses — we were given an amuse bouche. These were small bowls of a delicious and rich creamy soup made of fennel, in which floated a small piece of poached merlu, or hake. Perfect. Here’s my serving:

Our amuse bouche at Le Grain de Sel.

My entrée. My first “real” course was duck foie gras, cooked in a terrine at the restaurant, and served with house-made fig bread, lightly toasted. Just before it arrived, I called over our server and had just said “Je veux…” (“I want…”) when he finished my sentence for me: “…un verre de Monbazillac.” Exactly — he was a mind-reader! A glass of that sweet wine from the Bergerac area is traditional with foie gras, and this particular foie was so rich that the relatively small serving was more than enough. Have a look:

A slice of silky smooth foie gras terrine to begin.

Jan’s entrée. Meanwhile, Jan was definitely in a seafood mood, so she chose a fish dish for both her appetizer and her main course. Her starter was a square of cod from Brittany, served with tomatoes prepared two ways, as a purée and as a kind of mini-salad or salsa on top:

Jan’s entrée: Cod with tomatoes done two ways.

The plat principal. Each of us chose a fish dish as our main course — the maigre de petit bateau. Maigre is the French name for giant sea bass or croaker, and it’s a very tasty denizen of the deep, as the saying goes. It was served on top of artichokes, with steamed potatoes from the island of Noirmoutier (just south of Brittany) on a skewer. Here’s my plate:

Nicely cooked fish with potatoes on a wooden skewer.

Jan’s dessert.  To wind up our lunch, Jan chose a  panna cotta, made with rice as if it were a rice pudding, and decorated all over with thin slices of strawberry — like this:

Thinly sliced strawberries made for a beautiful top.

My dessert. To end my meal, I had the presque une tarte au citron, or “almost” a lemon tart. In other words, it was a deconstructed lemon tart, served in a glass bowl with a wonderfully tangy lemon custard base, topped with cream and a small twirl of meringue, accompanied by a lime-flavoured sablé, or shortbread-type cookie. Here it is:

The lemony dessert at Le Grain de Sel.

So what does all this glorious food (and drink) cost? As I mentioned earlier, our three-course meal cost 31 euros each, plus a two-euro supplement for my foie gras starter. So that’s 64 euros in total. Then came seven euros for our kirs, 5.50 euros for the generous glass of Monbazillac with my foie gras, 30 euros for a bottle of Sancerre (the one disappointment — I found this one a bit odd-tasting), and five euros for our coffees after lunch. So the total was 111.50 euros.

Uh oh.  I’ve just realized, when I totaled the costs, based on our bill, that our server forgot to charge us for the bottle of fizzy water (Chateldon) that we had with our meal. Ah well, I did leave a tip.

And one more point: Jan and I agreed that while Le Grain de Sel gets the same Michelin rating as Le Petit Paris, we would give a slight edge to the restaurant in Périgueux, because the food was just that little bit finer. A definite discovery for foodies.

When the French font le pont, it means that they are taking a Friday as a vacation day to act as a “bridge” between a national holiday that falls on a Thursday and the weekend. (Americans do this when they use the Friday after a Thanksgiving Thursday as a vacation day.) But May provides a special opportunity for an extended vacation.

It actually began this past Wednesday, which was May 8 — or Victory in Europe day. The next day, it turns out, was Ascension, another national holiday. So yesterday (Friday) was a great day to “make the bridge” and head out of town for a bit of vacation. And obviously, that’s what a great many French families did.

The proof was the crowd that greeted us in the parking lot today when we arrived in Beynac for lunch.

We were with our friend Tish, and her longtime friend Gina, who is visiting from London. The four of us had started lunch at our house in Daglan with Aperol Spritzes, made with a good glug of the Italian drink Aperol that is topped up with a few ice cubes, a piece of fresh orange, and some sparkling white wine (Kriter, for us). The conversation flowed easily and we didn’t leave our house until 1 p.m., so we arrived in Beynac just before 1:30.

What greeted us was a parking lot that was absolutely jammed with cars, with not a single space available and with drivers idling their cars all over the place, hoping that someone might actually leave. Luck was with us, because as Tish drove into the lot, a car immediately in front of us was pulling out. Success!

Then it was a short walk to La Petite Tonnelle, which I last reviewed on April 16 in the posting “Nice twists on some yummy classics.” Despite the packed parking lot, I confess I was  still surprised to see how completely and utterly full the restaurant was.  (I know. Duh.) It was so busy that people were eating their lunch outside on the restaurant’s small patio, despite the cool and somewhat blustery weather. “This seems more like a peak day in July than early May,” I said to Tish, as we were seated upstairs at the last remaining table.

To its credit, the restaurant handled the crowd with commendable care. As we expected, it took quite a while for us to be served, but we had good conversation and a nice Tavel rosé to keep us going, and the food was worth the wait.

My wife Jan, as well as Tish and Gina, began their lunches with an asparagus plate, and then went on to a roasted daurade royale, which is a Mediteranean sea bream. As for me, here’s a look at my plat principal, a delicious omelette that was chock full of black truffle, with more black truffle slices on top:

Thin slices of black truffle decorate the top of the omelette.

By the time we finished, we were the last ones in the restaurant, but we never felt as if we were being rushed out the door.

As we walked back to Tish’s car through the parking lot, I was explaining to Gina how French licence plates include a number that signifies the département where the car is based. The numbering system is based on the département‘s name in alphabetical order — so that the Dordogne is 24 while the Lot is 46, despite the fact that the two départements are next to each other.

It suddenly occurred to me that out of all the licence plates I was pointing out, there were none from 24, the Dordogne. (We did finally see one Dordogne plate, as we drove out of the lot.)

In other words, Beynac had been invaded by tourists from all over France, who were  enjoying a vacation as long as five days, from Wednesday through Sunday. Clearly, they were making the most of le pont.

Typically we keep the fire going all night, and then let it go out during the day. Fortunately, because of a big delivery yesterday morning, our garage is now well stacked with firewood.

Getting to this point was a bit of a squeaker. As I wrote a few days ago in “Juggling firewood” (May 1), our supplies had run down to virtually nothing, and we had to borrow some wood from friends who have a holiday home near Daglan.

But yesterday morning, we received our delivery of four stères, or cubic metres, of bois de chauffage, or firewood, cut to the proper 40-centimetre length, so that the logs fit easily into our poêle, or wood burner. The logs were dumped from a tractor-pulled trailer right in front of our garage doors.

After more than an hour of shifting the firewood, my wife and I had it stacked in the garage. Then we loaded up my car with some of the wood and drove it to our friend’s house, to repay the loan of firewood. And here’s how our garage looked this morning:

The garage is stacked virtually to the ceiling.

With any luck, we won’t need to use much of the firewood until next fall, so the wood will be able to dry out still further, all summer long.

And come next fall, we won’t let our inventory get so low before ordering more. I promise.

La Goutte Noire (which means The Black Drop) is both the shop and the atelier, or workshop, of an attractive, energetic and obviously talented young woman named Sophie Arnaud. Her specialty is working with fine silver strands, shaping them into earrings, bracelets, necklaces and more, and then often combining the silver with semi-precious stones such as lapis lazuli. Prices are quite reasonable, with earrings starting as low as 10 euros.

Sophie’s shop is right on rue de la République, the main street that cuts through Daglan, and is roughly mid-way between the restaurant Le Petit Paris and the Fabrice le Chef Boutique. In the past, it was easy to mistake la Goutte Noire for a residence. But today the shop not only has better signage but also a couple of planters to catch your eye, and a table with chairs out front, where you’re welcome to rest and watch people drift by. Here’s how the storefront looks:

The sign marks the entrance off rue de la République.

The table and chairs in front of the store are not only for tourists who just want to get off their feet, but a good place for one partner to wait while his (or her) partner does some shopping.

A place for people-watching, or shopper-waiting.

Immediately next to the shop is Sophie’s atelier, where she crafts her jewelry. You’re welcome to visit her while she works, and also to take a look at her displays of pottery made by other local artisans. Here’s Sophie at work:

Here’s Sophie in her atelier, working with silver.

In the shop itself, the various pieces are nicely displayed, well arranged, and not crowded together. Here is her main display:

A sampling of Sophie’s jewelry, on display in her shop.

Now let’s move in a bit closer. Here’s a sampling of the pieces Sophie fashions, using only fine silver wire:

Some examples of Sophie’s work in silver.

And here’s a necklace and bracelet of silver, with the addition of some yellow-coloured gemstones:

Yellow-coloured gems with silver.

And here are some of her pieces made with amber-coloured stones:

Amber-coloured gems with silver.

Finally, here are my personal favourites — a selection of bracelets and necklaces made of silver chain with blue lapis lazuli stones added for colour and drama:

Blue beads of lapis lazuli make for great jewelry.

When my wife Jan and I were heading to Florida in February, we made a stop at la Goutte Noire and bought a lapis lazuli necklace for my sister Debby, who was having one of those “special” birthdays in early March. She loved it.

So if you’re visiting the Greater Daglan Area this summer, make a point of visiting Sophie at la Goutte Noire. If you’re particularly clever, you might wind up buying some perfect presents for your mother, wife, daughter or girlfriend this coming Christmas.

Nothing wrong with thinking ahead!

Each year, when we’ve been in the village, my wife Jan and I have joined the small group in Daglan’s Place de la Liberté to remember those who died liberating France and the rest of Nazi-occupied Europe. I wrote about this on May 8 of last year, in “Our damp V-E Day ceremony.”

As you’ll see, this isn’t a major happening — I counted just 30 people standing around the war memorial, in front of the restaurant Le Petit Paris, listening to the speeches and eventually singing the national anthem.  But it’s a solemn event and it certainly marks a period of history that shouldn’t be forgotten.

What follows is a brief photographic record of today’s ceremony.

Just before 11:45 in the morning, a few civic officials and war veterans marched the short distance from the Mairie, the Mayor’s office, and prepared for the ceremony at the war memorial. This included placing a bouquet at the foot of the flag pole, and then raising the French flag, the tricolour. Here’s how it looked:

The bouquet of flowers is ready to be set before the flag pole.

The flag is then clipped to the line that will raise it up the pole:

The French flag is in position, ready to be raised.

Hoisting the flag now begins:

The French flag is rising up the pole.

And here it is, waving gently in a light breeze, against this morning’s cloudy sky:

The French flag against a cloudy May sky in Daglan.

Here, one of the civic officials reads a prepared statement about the war and the eventual defeat of the Nazis:

One of three speakers addresses the small crowd.

Then comes a minute of silence, followed by the singing of La Marseillaise, the national anthem.

The idea is that the group will sing along to an instrumental version of the anthem, played on a portable CD player. Of course, this wouldn’t be a Huit Mai ceremony in Daglan unless there was a problem with the player, which no one ever seems able to operate properly. And sure enough, despite an awful lot of poking of buttons, the player refused to play. But to their credit, the villagers still sang a pretty hearty version of La Marseillaise.

Late Sunday afternoon, my wife Jan and I headed up to Domme for a drink and a big dose of scenery. And what a change from the autumn.

One Saturday last fall (fall means autumn, if you’re British), I thought that we should drive to Domme, enjoy the view, and have a coffee. Instead, we arrived at a virtual ghost town, with almost everything in  the village shut down.

In fact, there were precisely three places open for business — a somewhat touristy shop that sells over-priced local products (like tins of foie gras); a dusty little convenience store; and a small café-cum-bakery with absolutely no view and not very good coffee. We wouldn’t have been surprised to see an old cowboy leaning against a stone wall, chewing a piece of straw, while tumbleweed rolled through the deserted streets.

But yesterday? Ah, that was quite a different story. We arrived at the peak of this hill-top village at just about 6:30, and the parking lot was almost completely full, there were tourists wandering through the streets, and Le Belvedere was open for business. Huzzah!

So here’s a look at the building itself, located near lots of parking, and at the edge of the hillside that drops down to the Dordogne Valley below:

Le Belvedere’s the name, a wonderful view is the game.

We sat at a corner table on the terrace, had an espresso (moi) and a kir (Jan), and simply took in the great scenery and bright blue sky. Here’s the terrace some time after 6:30 p.m.:

A nicely peopled terrace, at 6:30 p.m.

And the views? Well, here’s a photo that I took on the promenade in front of Le Belvedere, looking back towards the village and showing some of the limestone cliff that descends from Domme:

Domme was built on top of this limestone.

And here’s a view looking outward from the promenade just below Le Belvedere, towards the fields and forests, a stretch of the Dordogne River, and the hills beyond:

A view of fields and hills from Domme.

As for today? Just as sunny as yesterday, but even warmer. So our lunch consisted of steaks that I cooked on the charcoal grill, accompanied by a lovely Tavel rosé.

And in an important sign that life in the GDA has transitioned from the quiet of winter to the bustle of summer (in other words, the start of the tourist season), the 8 à Huit convenience store in the heart of Daglan is open today. Yes, I know, it’s a Monday, when the store is usually closed. But not when there’s business to be had. Let The Season begin!

In any case, an imaginary rock band is not really the topic of this post. Rather, it’s about the fact that the Greater Daglan Area is now getting sunshine, and the fact that my wife and I have sort of a miracle tree on our front steps. (Now see how the title makes sense?)

Our tree is an orange tree, growing in a large ceramic pot. I first wrote about it early last summer, in “Orange Tree, Very Pretty,” posted on June 19, 2012. I had bought the tree at a nursery in Sarlat when it was flowering, and the luscious scent of the small white blooms added great atmosphere when we were coming or going through our front door.

I did a follow-up piece in the fall, when our tree had six actual oranges growing on it (“Orange Tree, Very Tasty,” on October 22, 2012). This was a bit of a miracle in itself, we thought, because we had never really expected that we’d get edible fruit from a small tree growing in a  planter. But we did, and here’s a photo of its fruit-bearing branches:

How the oranges looked last October.

Eventually, we did harvest all the oranges. But as the weather got colder  last fall, we thought we’d better do something to protect our tree. Rather than wrapping it up, or creating an elaborate fogging mechanism (which the groves in Florida use), we decided to simply move it into our garage, which is on street-level, just below our salle à vivre. And so we did, along with two small olive trees that had been stationed at the front of our garage.

I’m positive that I watered the trees in the garage at least once over the winter, and it might have been twice. I do distinctly remember thinking that I should be watering them. But when spring arrived, the little olive trees looked and felt distinctly dead, while the orange tree looked to be, well, in a state of suspended animation. So I pitched out les oliviers and took the orange tree back up to our front steps, hoping that it would eventually show even the slightest sign of life.

There was nothing doing until a few days ago, when strange little growths began emerging from some of the tree’s branch tips. Were they small shoots, ready to become leaves? Or something other-worldly?

As it turns out, the miracle tree did its stuff, and seems to be alive and growing in the sunshine. Here it is, huddled next to our outdoor light for some extra warmth:

Our orange tree as it looked in yesterday’s sunshine.

And here’s a close-up of one of the branches, showing how the strange little shoots are really starting to turn into leaves:

Tender shoots are emerging, ready to grow into leaves.

Since we are already into May, I’m not really very hopeful that the tree will develop flowers. And without flowers, there can’t be fruit. At least I think there can’t.

Then again, this is a tree that survived winter in a cold garage, with barely a drop to drink. So maybe we’ll have another miracle — and it will grow small cartons of Tropicana orange juice. You just never know.