From The Sunday Times Travel Magazine

Looking for a hip weekend, rubbing elbows with A-listers in designer bars and hotels?

If so, stop reading and do not come to the Dordogne. "Buzz" here means the sound the honeybees make, and although the Dordogne (or Périgord) has 1.5 million visitors a year, it has doggedly stayed out of anything as frivolous as fashion. Instead, this lush rural idyll of lazy rivers, forests, medieval villages and fairytale castles has been left uncommonly intact, with truly unique things to view and do.

Say "Dordogne" to a Frenchman, however, and his first thought is of his stomach. With around a million ducks and 200,000 geese, the region is France's biggest producer of foie gras, magrets and confits de canard. You can add to that truffles, walnuts, and wines such as sweet, golden Monbazillac. At noon in the Dordogne church bells toll - signalling down tools, start lunch.

An authoritative French news magazine recently called the Dordogne "L'Arcadie des Anglais", but it just goes to show we Brits have good taste; and unlike Provence and other expat havens, here you can drive for miles without seeing a soul. It's best after the school-holiday crowds have vamoosed - especially if you aim for the southeastern corner, Périgord Noir.

In autumn, the landscapes around Beynac take on a magical, elegiac stillness, touched with reds and golds. Sarlat, Périgord Noir's capital - and foie gras central - is an excellent base for exploring the area. It's so good, so very good, that many visitors plan their return before they even leave, understanding what Henry Miller meant when he wrote: "France will someday exist no more, but the Dordogne will live on just as dreams live on and nourish the souls of men".

£45 BUYS: A kilo of top-quality whole foie gras. Buy it layered, millefeuille-style, with "black diamonds" (truffles), and the price leaps to £160.

KEY FACT: For 300 years the Dordogne was even more English than it is today. Part of Eleanor of Aquitaine's dowry when she wed Henry II in 1152, it only returned to France in 1453.

NUT FOR SALE: "Nothing is lost of the walnut except for the sound of its shell being cracked." Besides the obvious uses, the leaves are macerated to make vin de noix, and the shells are ground up to be sold as cat litter.

WHERE TO STAY

NO EXPENSE SPARED

Manoir d'Hautegente, in Coly (00 33 553 516803). Swathed in ivy, stuffed with family heirlooms, and set on a river in a leafy park, this tranquil 13th-century estate is the place for a bucolic country weekend straight out of a Renoir film. In warm weather dine on the terrace by the river; in autumn get cosy by the drawing room fire. There's a heated pool, too. Doubles from £124, half board.

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