![]() We didn’t have a good map of the town, so we drove around searching for a while, and by the time we finally found our hotel (at 9:59 p.m.), we were tired and grumpy. By the time we drove into Sarlat, it was nearly 10 p.m., the time at which, we had been told, the front desk of the hotel where we were staying would close. It was hot, too, and our car didn’t have air conditioning. Our trip across France by car took almost as long as it would have by train, as most of it involved twisty mountain roads. You can get to Sarlat from the French Alps, but it would have required taking five different trains and a bus-a trip lasting about 12 hours in total (and not an inexpensive one either). When the ticket agent heard “Sarlat,” he rolled his eyes and sighed as if to say, “You can’t get there from here.” Actually that would have been an overstatement. We went to the train station to figure out how to get there. We can recommend lots of places you’d enjoy more.” So we agonized over the decision for a long time, but finally agreed that we wanted to go with our first choice, touristy or not. “It’s really touristy,” they said, “and very hard to get to. The friends we were staying with tried to talk us out of it. We discussed Sarlat as one of several options for our final destination. When it finally came time to choose where to go, we were in the French Alps (on the east side of the country near the Swiss border). We had left the last week of our trip deliberately unplanned to allow ourselves the option of doing whatever seemed most interesting at the time. In June of 2003 we returned to France on vacation, and we hoped once again to visit Sarlat. On our first trip to France, in 2000, our schedule did not permit an excursion to Sarlat, but Morgen and I decided we’d do our best to go there the next time we were in the area. Guidebooks generally speak highly of the town too, and I thought it sounded like a great place to visit. But what the book describes is a quaint town preserved as it was in medieval times-a place full of history and character. It’s the site of just one minor scene and is only given a passing mention. In particular, Crichton’s description of the town of Sarlat caught my attention. ![]() Most of the book’s action takes place in the Dordogne river valley in southwestern France-partly in the 14th century and partly in the 20th. Given my fondness for France, I was especially interested in his book Timeline, published in 1999 (and made into a disappointingly forgettable movie in 2003). It’s often had to tell where reality ends and fiction begins, which I’m sure is exactly what he was aiming for. ![]() I liked the stories, but what appealed to me more was the depth of historical and scientific research he put into his work. Back in the day, I was in the habit of reading every new Michael Crichton novel as soon as it was released. ![]()
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