I Love My Town: Verteillac

We moved lock-stock from the UK to France in 2003 bringing with us four cats and a spirit of adventure.  Our destination? A run-down farmhouse near the buzzy village of Verteillac in the north of the Dordogne.  It felt like the best of both worlds - a home in the middle of the country with land for a pony (and two donkeys as it turned out) but with a year-round lively village just a couple of kilometres away.

Verteillac has a lot to offer the newcomer to France.  A mixed local community of French, Brits and Dutch, a bakery, a butcher, grocery store, restaurants, bars, post office, medical centre… And to top it off there is a packed calendar of events through the year.

Every first Sunday of the month is a grand brocante in the square where you can pick up anything from an ancient anvil to a Limoges tea set and have a bit of fun bartering along the way. In the summer there are foodie markets in the evenings where you buy your supper from local producers and sit on long tables to eat with whoever rocks up next to you. There are fireworks and a night market and a marvellous New Year’s Eve dinner.

For my money, Verteillac offers the ideal mix of old-world charm and modern convenience with a warm welcome thrown in for luck.  You can’t say fairer than that.

Have a look at some of our properties in the Dordogne

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