Bergerac and Monbazillac: Cyrano's Town and the Noble-Rot Wine
Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
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Monbazillac Noble Rot
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250
XP
+100 France
= 350 total
2 days
Bergerac and Monbazillac: Cyrano's Town and the Noble-Rot Wine
250 + 100 XP
Bergerac gave Cyrano his name — the real Savinien de Cyrano added it to his own and never lived here — and it gives its name to the wines of its hills, 12,600 hectares under thirteen AOCs, tasted today in the Cloître des Récollets. Across the river the Château de Monbazillac, built in one campaign around 1550 and owned by the local cooperative since 1960, looks over the vineyards where noble rot makes the sweet wine.
Required Activities
1
of 4
Taste your way through the Bergerac appellations at the Maison des Vins in the cloître des Récollets above the river, and work out how many of the thirteen AOCs grown across the 12,600 hectares of this vineyard you can tell apart
2
of 4
Find both statues of Cyrano in the old town — Dorillac's of 1977 on the place de la Myrpe and Mauro Corda's bronze of 2005 on the place Pélissière — and decide which of the two noses Rostand would have recognised
3
of 4
Cross the two-arched bridge into the Château de Monbazillac, a plain rectangle with four fat round towers, and count the machicolations, loopholes and crenellations on a château built for show rather than for a siege, then taste the sweet wine made from the 25 hectares the cooperative works around it
4
of 4
Take a trip on the Dordogne in a gabarre from Bergerac
Taste your way through the Bergerac appellations at the Maison des Vins in the cloître des Récollets above the river, and work out how many of the thirteen AOCs grown across the 12,600 hectares of this vineyard you can tell apart
Find both statues of Cyrano in the old town — Dorillac's of 1977 on the place de la Myrpe and Mauro Corda's bronze of 2005 on the place Pélissière — and decide which of the two noses Rostand would have recognised
Cross the two-arched bridge into the Château de Monbazillac, a plain rectangle with four fat round towers, and count the machicolations, loopholes and crenellations on a château built for show rather than for a siege, then taste the sweet wine made from the 25 hectares the cooperative works around it
Take a trip on the Dordogne in a gabarre from Bergerac
Before you go
The gabarres run from the Quai Salvette at Bergerac from about 1 April to 31 October, on a 50-minute circuit with departures through the day; longer trips run only in high summer and should be booked. Outside that window the boats do not sail.
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About Nouvelle-Aquitaine
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Challenge Location
XP Breakdown
Challenge XP
250 XP
France country bonus
+100 XP
Potential total
350 XP
Country bonus earned on completion of your first challenge in France.
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