We pass the church, keep driving until we see a public pay telephone, come to an intersection, take the road on the left, go over the small bridge and…there is still no little stone house with white shutters and a bench in front. We go over the directions again, and retrace our steps. We end up in front of an abandoned, crooked barn, which does not in the least resemble a cute little stone cottage with white shutters, we’ve been promised on homeaway.com. We have another go at it – we get ourselves back on the main road for the umpteenth time, find the church, keep going until the telephone, take a left at the intersection and just keep going past the barn. Nothing.
Dordogne, Southwest France.
At this point we’ve been at this for at least two hours. We were more than a little grumpy. We were exhausted. We were jet lagged. We flew New York – Paris earlier that day, didn’t rest or sleep, and instead picked up our rental car at Charles De Gaulle airport and drove 6 hours south to the Dordogne region of France. We were on our honeymoon, which we were supposed to spend at a little stone cottage with white shutters and a bench out front in a tiny village in Southwest France.
I’ve spent days perusing rental websites picking out the perfect cottage. We wired the money to the landlord two months earlier, and received an information packet with directions to the house via…wait for it, regular snail mail. Not only did we receive directions in a packet via regular mail, but the sheet also informed us that because the village was so tiny, there were no street names, nor house numbers. We were to proceed to the Bourg – meaning the center of the village, and then follow exact directions with the church, pay telephone and bridge. Under the bench we were to find the key to unlock the house.
Sunset over Dordogne, Southwest France.
We had zero records to prove that we had paid someone the money, or even made reservations to stay in this cottage. Come to think of it, we didn’t even have proof that the little stone cottage with white shutters and a bench out front existed.
It was almost 2 am, and we were done. We had two options – park the car and sleep on it, or drive to the nearest ‘big’ small town, and see if we can rent a hotel room and sleep on it. We drove 20 minutes to Sarlat-en-Caneda, which of course was deserted. A few street lamps illuminated the boarded up shutters and locked doors of every house and hotel in town. Devastating, but not unexpected.
Sarlat-en-Caneda, France.
After a few minutes driving around town center, we heard people laughing and signing. We parked the car, and made our way around the block on foot to find an after-hours gathering at a local pub. I attempted, in my broken French – which to my shame and extreme annoyance, I hadn’t practiced for almost six years – to explain the situation. Much merriment was had at my expense. In almost perfect English the owner of the bar offered to help. He sat us down, poured us big glasses of wine, and with characteristic “Alors,” asked for our directions.
With a raised eyebrow he gravely told us that as a fifth generation local resident of Sarlat, he knew every family in the surrounding area, and he’s never heard of the names listed on our piece of paper. We tried the local number – the phone was off. “Alors.” The bar owner offered us his apartment for the night, while he would sleep at his bar. Best news we’ve heard in the past 24 hours. We couldn’t pay him the requested 60 euros fast enough.
The next morning we woke up to a sunshine soaked town that was straight out of “Beauty and the Beast,” everything including the fountain was there on the main square. If we could only sort out the situation with our cottage we would be all set.
Sarlat-en-Caneda, France.
We got dressed, had breakfast and set out to follow our directions once again – we passed the church, drove until we saw a public pay telephone, came to an intersection, took the road on the left, went over the small bridge, and…there STILL was no little stone house with white shutters and a bench in front. So it wasn’t the jetlag, or the opportunistic bar keep. We went in circles a few more times.
On our last attempt we ran into a woman walking her dogs. I summoned my very best French. I explained that we were looking for a stone cottage with white shutters and a bench in front. She was confused. I showed her the paper with directions. “Ah, mon Dieu! – You are in Carsac, but no, you are looking for Carsac-Aillac?” “Just a few kilometers down the road, you will find the sister village.”
Carsac-Aillac, Dordogne, France.
We drove a few kilometers down the road, passed the church, found a public pay telephone a little ways down, took the road on the left after the intersection, crossed the small bridge, and found the little stone house with white shutters and a bench in front. I opened the gate, reached under the bench and felt around for a little pouch. Yep, there it is – a key to our cottage! Lune de Miel saved!
Looking back on this story I wouldn’t have spent our first married night any other way – we laughed, we cried, we got angry, we found adventure, and most importantly, we persevered together. Oh, and that cottage – it was everything I dreamt it would be, and more, in part because of the adventure.
Stone cottage with white shutters, Carsac-Aillac, Dordogne, France.
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