I cannot tell you much about the village of Saint Jory de Chalais in the Dordogne Department of Nouvelle Aquitaine. It is tiny and the River Cole flows through it and it is kept very, very tidy by it’s 600+ inhabitants but; that’s about it, except for the fact it is on our route to Perigueux (south of which is, supposedly, better weather) and it has a campsite that Vanya wanted us to overnight at.
Camping Le Lieu is a small campsite at the edge of Saint Jory de Chalais which until recently was known as Camping Maisonneuve. The campsite is run now by a most welcoming and friendly couple (Charline and Julien) and if the village doesn’t have enough about it to warrant a longer stay, the campsite does. We stayed two nights despite the continuing poor weather simply because we were made to feel so welcome.
There’s a barn adjoining the owner’s residence which has been transformed into a very sociable cafe/bar where most if not all of those staying at the site congregated in the evenings together with a few villagers. Food is currently limited to snacks and pizzas but the pizzas were fresh and tasty and the bar had no fixed closing time; which is always a plus when the company is good and the local red wine so pleasant.
The campsite has a swimming pool and a fishing lake but with the weather deteriorating so markedly, they were of no particular interest to us. On a warm, sunny day it would be different.
And the village of Saint Jory de Chalais…
As has been mentioned, there is not a great deal to the village. There is a shop and an inn, the Auberge St George’s, but both seemed to operate very limited opening hours. Had we been staying longer, we’d have made enquiries in that regard but; this is the Dordogne and there are plenty of other busier towns and villages in the area to visit, if that is what you want. We needed to visit a hardware store in Thiviers and Charline had recommended we visit the nearby ‘plus beau village de France’ of Saint Jean de Cole. There was all the reason we needed to stay on the second night.