Yesterday Team Basil had a bit of a rest. The weather had improved and we even saw some sunshine, so we decided to stay at Camping Sandaya Les Peneyrals for another day. Sarah gave Basil’s insides a good clean and we both took Skye down to the dog area on the site to try wearing her out with a ball. With a Border Collie that is an almost impossible task. The campsite was also much quieter since the bank holiday in France had now finished.

Today we decided to travel one hour to Perigueux. My brother and his partner had recommended its Roman Museum and it has a fairly cheap aire. The journey was very smooth until we approached the outskirts of Perigueux where we hit a traffic jam. It soon became clear that the road was blocked and our attempts at finding a detour came to an abrupt halt when we met a no 3.5 tonne sign. Sharp eyed Sarah, spotted a supermarket and suggested we did the shop we had intended for tomorrow now, will the expectation by the time we were finished the road would be clear.

How wrong we were. As we approached the place where police had earlier been diverting traffic we found the police presence seemed to have have caused another pile up, and we were struck for half an hour, as breakdown vehicles came to removed the damaged vehicles.

This time our attempt at a diversion was more successful and eventually we found ourselves in a nice aire next to the River Dordogne (45.1872, 0.7312  €6.50). Since so many of our blogs recently have heavily featured the terrible weather, I thought I would leave a little while before telling you that it has been raining cats and dogs all day. Again. Unsurprisingly, given all the rain, the river Dordogne had burst its banks and the footpaths along the river were closed in a number places.

Nonetheless I felt I had to see this Roman museum and so off I set with an umbrella. The museum turned out to be 1.6 miles away and despite my umbrella, by the time I had reached it I was saturated. Even my pants were soaking!

The museum turned out to be reasonably good. It is based around a villa complex which had been found and excavated and then encased in a large modern building. It was possible to use walkways to move around the various sections of the villa.

In addition there were three floors of Roman artefacts which had been recovered, not just from the villa, but also the surrounding area.

When I had finished in the Museum I had dried off a good deal and the rain had also eased, so I decided to have a quick look round Perigueux’s old town and the outside of its Cathedral. The Cathedral, in particular is unusual. In the 1840’s the architect who designed Sacré Couer in Paris, was given carte blanche to work on Perigueux’s Cathedral. Leaving the bell tower untouched he redesigned the rest to try to mimic St. Mark’s in Venice. My Rough Guide describes the domes as looking like pineapples! A little, but not totally unfair.

The Cathedral