FRENCH CITY TOUR Discover Brantôme the Venice of Périgord Dordognes Most Enchanting Town

So here next to me is the Drone Valley River. And you can hear the bell tower behind me ringing now. This is the only shop that you need. It's the wine shop. If you want to come and see how glass is blown, you can come into this wonderful store. Come and have a look at this. Hi and welcome back. We're now in another one of my very favourite towns. And it's quite close to me, only 40 minutes away from where I actually live. This is Brantum and Brantum is known as the Venice of the Dordogne. It's one of the most beautiful towns in France and definitely alongside Salat, one of the best ones in the Dordogne, the Perigord region. Behind me you will see a 17th century abbey that was built in the 17th century. It's an amazing building and we're going to go and have a look inside that very soon. But behind that was discovered in the troglodytes, which is a lot of buildings, homes built into the rock, is a 7th century church. So it's an amazing place to live and it's an amazing place to visit. So let's go and have a little tour and see all the treasures that are available. So what you can see behind me now are some of the little boutiques. This is a lovely glass shop selling ice creams and little artisans specialities. You can see behind me as well all of these beautiful buildings. The architecture in Brantum is fabulous and you can see this all over the Dordogne region in France. It's typical architecture of the area and it hasn't been destroyed and it's been restored beautifully to how it would have originally been. Now we're going to go up and cross one of the many bridges in Brantum and have a look at the properties alongside where I'm walking. Now this building here, if you have a look at the architecture, this was the original ramparts which would have protected the city. So this would have gone all around the town and then these buildings, this lovely archway at the top was put in in the 19th century. But underneath, you'll see here, all the way along here, we have the original ramparts of the city. And look at this magnificent building. This is now being converted into part of the hotel from the Moulin d'Abbaye restaurant which we're going to visit very soon, which is actually a Michelin star restaurant and fantastic. The architecture here is just amazing. So here, just on the river's edge, what a great spot to have lunch or aperos in the evening. It's right on the river's edge and all the ducks come up and all the children are always feeding the ducks. It's a really well-priced restaurant. It's called the Oldville de l'Eau, one of my favourites, right near the bridge. Perfect place for a nice glass of wine. So here next to me is the Drone Valley River, the Drone River, and it's absolutely spotlessly clean. You can see all the fish. There's loads of fish in there. There's lots of things to do for the family. You've got canoeing, you've got little electric boats, little barrels to put your cold drinks in, and it's just right next to the Abbey of Brantol. And one really interesting fact is where this Drone Valley goes to, between here and Riberac, which is only about 35 kilometres, there's actually 96 water mills. So if you're looking to buy a water mill, this would be the area to do it in because the water is beautifully clean and full of fish. So as you can see behind me, this is one of the water mills, and this is actually a really fantastic Michelin-star restaurant, part of the hotel that we saw earlier. It's a fun place to come and sit in the shade and watch all the canoeists getting stuck all kayaking and getting stuck on the bridge, some of them ending up in the water. It's a lovely place to come for children, and the scenery here is just picture postcard. It's like something off a chocolate box. Absolutely stunning and so beautifully maintained. So from this bridge, you can see how beautiful the Moulin d'Abbey is, the water mill, and you can see that the wheel is still turning, and it probably is one of the best restaurants in the Dordogne. Absolutely fantastic food, but now let's go and look at some of the other splendid architecture that this town has to offer, and it's absolutely amazing. And just over here, they're just waiting for the bateau, the boat, to come in, and this is a lovely thing to do with your family. This particular building was built by Pierre de Maroy, and his coat of arms are still on it, and that was built back in 1871. Great piece of history. So this is one of the most historic parts of Brantum, and if you come to Brantum, this is without a doubt a must-see. You'll see where the other caves have been dug out, and that would have built the new abbey that was formed around the 17th, 18th century, that still stands here today. And we're lucky enough to still have this piece of history, because it wasn't destroyed in the Hundred Years War, it wasn't destroyed in the Renaissance period, but it was kept to the beauty that it is today. And you can hear the bell tower behind me ringing now. This bell tower goes back to the 11th century, so it's really, really rare, and it's one of the most unique bell towers actually in France. It's historical value is it's built on rock, which is very rare as well, and it stands behind as one of the oldest parts of the Brantum Abbey. So this staircase is one of the most magnificent masterpieces of the abbey. This was designed by Vauban, who was a genius architect of his time, and it shows the structure and how well it can survive. This is just a masterpiece of the abbey. As you can see, the roof structure and the charpent is totally original, and it's one of the most unique structures in the whole of France. This was actually built by the boat builders, and hence why it's that shape, it's actually an upturned boat, so it protects the roof in the same style as they would have done with boats. And then follow me, because this part of the abbey has one of the most beautiful viewpoints. So this is the remains of the absolutely stunning cloister, which was built in the 16th century, and you'll notice the ceilings, which are magnificent, are cross-ribbed archways all the way along to the church. So we won't film inside the church today, because there is some things going on in there, but let's go and have a look at the shopping streets and where the market is held. So over on the other side of the river here, it's just gorgeous, there's loads of little cafes and bars, go and have a coffee, go and have a little Prussiana, a little beer, or a glass of wine. And on market days, the market is all over this town, so on a Friday morning, every day until one o'clock, the market will be on in all of this area. So the great thing about here is a lot of the stores and restaurants are built inside the rock, so they would have been like homes at some stage, but now they're really nice cool places to shop because they're completely enclosed in the rock. Now this is one of my favourite places, if you want to come and see how glass is blown, you can come into this wonderful store, come and have a look at this. The great thing about Brantum and all these lovely cave shops is everything is so unique, there's no two shops are the same, it's not branded, it's all little artisans making such wonderful things. So behind me you can see the gateway, which is the gateway of Saint-Germain, and that used to close off the abbey from the north side and protect it from anyone that was coming in. So the Glacier de Brantum is a great place to visit if you're coming to Brantum. So I've decided to go for a very lovely white chocolate chunky ice cream, but my cameraman, well he's gone for a bit flowery and he's gone for orange and violet. And then on my right hand side we've got the Hotel Charbonnel, which is really stunning, and we'll go and have a look at that now. This is a great favourite of mine again, this is the Hotel and Restaurant Charbonnel, and actually one of our agents, Marielle Charbonnel, sold this a few years ago and she's now with Leggits. But great restaurant, look at the terrace, and it's open right up until sort of winter time really, and you're just sitting over, you see the ducks, the fish and the food, it's fantastic. So that's the restaurant I was talking about, you go down a secret alley and it comes out onto this fabulous terrace overlooking the river. So here there's some other really lovely restaurants you can see behind me, the Bistro Comtois, which is very nice and again opens up onto a lovely terrace on the river. But this is one of the main shopping streets in Branton, lots of little artisanal shops, so let's go and have a look. So here on both sides of the street we have the Maison Cartel, which has been around since 1932 and it's really famous for its charcuterie, its meats, its wine, its ice cream, really lovely shop on both sides of the street. There's many artisanal shops here, this one on the left makes knives, beautiful wooden handles, corkscrews and anything that's quite sharp. And on the other side we've got soaps and flowers, floral smelling oils, it's really pretty. This is a great shop, sells all kinds of things, from clothes to little artefacts, the hats, everything. It's actually owned by an English lady, the Cabane de Sonia, and she even has magical stones. This is a great little tree cycle, it's called here in France, where they recycle clothes, so it's second hand shop. They also do quite a lot of vintage and quite a lot of bric-a-brac and odds and ends. And there's three of them, one here, one in Bordet and one where I can't remember. Aganac. Aganac, thank you Cyril. Now at the end of a day of filming, this is the only shop that you need, it's the wine shop. This area is famous for Bergerac and Bordeaux wine because we're in that region, we're not far from Bergerac and we're not far from Bordeaux. Absolutely wonderful choices of local wines. And I think it's about time I picked up a bottle for our perros this evening. So behind me here is probably a very original office of tourism. It's actually recently been converted from an old church, where last year I was hearing choir singing there. So I'm hoping they're still going to be doing the concerts. But that's sort of, we've gone around the island, there's another shopping street there. We haven't got time to show it all to you today, but you should really come and visit. And if you want any information or you're looking for properties in this area, then do have a look at our details on our website, which is below. It's a fabulous place to visit, this little island in the middle and the shopping street. So do come along and I hope to see you next time.