St Jean de Cole a gentle village, officially classified as one
of the Plus Beaux
Villages de France - one of the most beautiful villages in France.
On the banks of the river Cole, with its humpback Gothic bridge
and its Fontaine de l'Amour and its Chateau de la Marthonie in its
centre - not to visit St Jean de Cole would be an experience missed.
Especially on a calm, spring-lit day, sparse of visitors and a million
miles away from strife. Stress is not a word much used here.
Not that this was always so, what with the Dordogne's violent
historic past. Nor if you were one of the successive builders who
managed not to stop the 12c Priory Church's dome from falling
down! The last time it did in 1860, they didn't bother putting it
back.
