Annabelle asked about my walking trip. We leave in mid-May and we will be walking in Dordogne Noir and Haut Quercy for 13 days (12 nights). We booked with Sentiers de France. http://www.sentiersdefrance.com/ It is a customized trip to include the replica cave of Lascaux, Sarlat and Rocadmadour. It is a self-guided tour - just the two of us and we start at Montignac and end at Creysse. We chose the classic level. They have a higher priced comfort level. They also have a budget division which offers luggage transfer or not. http://www.randolacaminade.com/

Lascaux II - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux Sarlat - http://www.otspn.com/cgi-bin/web/default.asp Rocamadour - http://www.sacredsites.com/europe/france/rocamadour.html

We considered other walking companies, especially ones previously recommended by Ziners but we decided to go with Sentiers because it specializes in France and had the option of combining two trips and is at the right level - not too rigorous - we hope! We haven't done this before so we didn't want to plan it ourselves. We have done backpacking way back when in the Adirondack Mountains in NY State as well as canoe tripping in more recent years - that always includes some hiking (aka portaging!) We also decided we needed to be forced to walk - if our luggage is gone on to the next hotel, well, I guess we will have to as well!

What's included? Well, they move our luggage each day - that was important to us. All hotels (most are 2 star), breakfasts, all evening meals except our second night in Sarlat. There seems to be an emphasis on dining - a choice for each course. Hope it works out. In addition six taxi rides avoiding the boring bits are included as well as maps, detailed route notes, itinerary with points of interest and emergency assistance.

We plan to use the train to get from Toulouse and we have a couple of days at the beginning and at the end of our trip. The website suggested that we have a day or so to deal with jetlag and that sounded like good advice to us.

We have "signed" the contract - given our deposit! We are going... I will post a report on our return. In the meantime if anyone can suggest great books or websites on the countryside, villages, churches, history, architecture, etc., please post. Thanks.

Frances Toronto, Canada