Visitors to the Dordogne this August are in for a treat as the region prepares for three days of festival fun.

Aquitaine’s festival committee (comité des fêtes) is preparing the village of Bergerac for its annual three-day celebration, with a programme of events aimed at bringing the local community closer together.

According to regional newspaper Sud Ouest, the festival will kick off on Saturday 21 August at 11.30am with a performance from the Big Bang Contre Band at Bercerac’s Charles-de-Gaulle square. A cabaret evening hosted by Cosmopolitan de Bergerac will bring day one to a close in flamboyant style. Concert-goers can enjoy a pre-performance meal at 8pm, before the main event gets under way at 8.30pm.

The fun continues from 8am on Sunday with an all-day flea market down on the banks of the Dordogne river, while a belote competition (traditional card game) at 9am on the village green is sure to be hotly contested. Bouncy castles will be close at hand, so there’s no need to worry about your kids getting bored.

Latin singer Manu Mambo and his band will get the crowd swinging at 5pm with an energetic hour-and-a-half performance, before a huge firework display at 10.30pm brings Sunday’s events to an explosive climax.

Monday will unfold at an altogether more relaxed pace, with a pétanque competition organised by local group la Pétanque Fombeaudaise bringing the festivities to a close in typically French style.

For holidaymakers looking for a taste of French summer culture, the festival is an ideal opportunity. Visitors can contact the local tourist office on +33 (0)5 57 40 27 58 for more information on tickets and pricing.

The first in a set of new speed camera warning signs will go up in the Dordogne next month, according to local news sources.

Sud Ouest report that the new signs will be placed 2 km away from the actual speed camera, in a bid to improve road safety in the region. Signs are currently posted just 400 metres ahead of cameras, which can result in accidents caused by sudden braking.

The new signs will bear the words “pour votre sécurité, contrôles radars fréquents,” warning motorists that speed cameras are placed at regular intervals to ensure their safety.

Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo explained the thinking behind the new sign placements. He told English-language newspaper The Connexion: “These new panels are to stop drivers who are breaking the limit suddenly braking in front of the signs.”

“They should make motorists drive responsibly at all times,” he added.

The Connexion confirm that the first new signs in the Dordogne will be on the RD 936 at Lamonzie-Saint-Martin. Others will go up on the A36 at Sausheim, and the RD 83 at Rouffach – both in the Haut-Rhin.

In other local news, more than 100 people attended a giant picnic organised by the Dordogne Regional Council on Sunday.

The event, which took place by the village pond in Saint-Estèphe, enjoyed a relaxed atmosphere and encouraged locals to make friends with other residents.

Some of the guests went for a stroll after the pique-nique géant to take in the area’s natural delights. Others stayed by the pond and enjoyed a game of boules, according to Sud Ouest.

Horse riding is a great way of exploring the Dordogne, according to The Independent’s journalist Michael Kallenbach.

Armed with his riding hat, the journalist flew into the south-west of France, ready for his riding holiday. EU health and safety regulations mean riding hats are compulsory on all riding trips.

Kallenbach explained that the horses for the trips are not kept at the manor house at which he stayed, but are actually brought in from a nearby stable.

Each person in the group is given a horse and on this particular trip, the group was split into two, based on those who wanted to ride at a faster pace and those that were happy to ride slower and do half days only.

The rides themselves take holiday makers around the countryside of the Bergerac. Kallenbach described the day trip as taking riders through ‘an idealised version of rural France- enchanting forests and rolling hills.

By being split into two groups, those who opt for a more leisurely pace are able to take the time to absorb everything the Bergerac has to offer. The trip meanders through nearby villages including Lamonzie-Montastruc, Saint Marcel du Perigord and Pressignac Vicq.

For the riding trips around the Dordogne, you do need a reasonable amount of previous riding experience and you should be comfortable in control of a horse at a walk, trot or canter, says Kallenbach. The minimum group size is 4 people, and you ride for between 3 and 6 hours a day.

Most riding holidays offer an all inclusive style package with meals, drinks, accommodation and transfers to and from the airport, with the price of riding included in the cost.

British holidaymakers planning a trip to the Dordogne this summer can expect a warm welcome from local residents and tourist industries, according to Sud Ouest.

The Dordogne region recorded a sharp fall in the number of British visitors in 2008, mainly due to a 30 per cent devaluation of the Pound against the Euro.

Visitor numbers have started to stabilise, but are still some way short of the pre-2008 levels. As a result, the local tourism industry is keen to pull out all the stops to bring ‘les anglais’ back to the region.

“They [British tourists] were some of our best customers,” Gè Kusters, owner of Le Paradis campsite in Saint-Léon-sur-Vézère, told Sud Ouest.

“Today there are fewer of them, and those that do come here spend very little on local services,” he added.

The Pound has seen a slight rise in value against the Euro in recent months, but Bouahlem Rekkas of the Sarlat Tourist Board knows that this alone will not be enough to draw British holidaymakers back to the region.

“We’re not going to rest on our laurels”, Mr Rekkas told Sud Ouest yesterday.

“These [British] customers love our region, that’s certainly a bonus. But if we don’t promote ourselves properly, they will start to forget about us”, he added.

All of this means that local hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions will be doing all they can this summer to promote the Dordogne and help make British tourists fall in love with the region all over again.

Expect warmer welcomes from your hosts, a larger number of English-speaking tour guides in town and an even friendlier service in local shops and restaurants.

An annual neighbourhood watch campaign for local residents has got under way in the Dordogne, Sud Ouest reports.

Opération tranquillité, which translates as ‘operation peace of mind’, allows residents to go away on holiday safe in the knowledge that their homes are under the watchful eye of the local police service.

Residents can advise the local police when they plan to go on holiday, so that police officers can drop by regularly and make sure that everything is in order. Neighbouring residents are also asked to tell the police if they notice anything suspicious happening around their neighbours’ home.

French people place a great deal of importance on their summer holidays, and often go away for the whole month of August. The empty streets and quiet neighbourhoods around this time of year leads to an increase in burglaries, which is why many French residents are fearful of leaving their homes unattended.

Neighbours alone cannot be relied on to keep watch, as they too are more than likely to be on holiday at the same time. This is one of the main reasons why opération tranquillité has proved to be so popular. It is also very easy for residents to register with the scheme; all they need to do is go to their local police station and fill out a form indicating the dates that their home will be empty.

Despite the success of the scheme, the Dordogne’s local council advises local residents to make sure their property is as secure as possible before going away. Their advice includes locking all windows and shutters, and asking a friend or neighbour to empty letter boxes regularly to prevent mail from being stolen.

The French government have unveiled a new multi-lingual tourist website, to coincide with the country’s national holiday, Bastille Day.

Tourists from around the world will be able to use the website before embarking on their impending French holiday, to find out what is going on around the country.

France.fr is available in English, German, Italian, Spanish and of course French. The government hope the site will be used not only by tourists, but also by the country’s residents needing practical information on a range of elements of French life.

The website will promote the country to tourists and provide information to those wanting to know more about studying, working, living and starting a business in France.

The new project, which is being managed by the Prime Minister’s office, will see the website continue to grow in the coming months. The website is expected to contain around 12,000 links to other online resources, which may be found useful. These include links to the country’s weather forecast office, Meteo France and to tourist offices in the country.

The website has launched today, as part of the country’s fête nationale celebrations. The day remembers the storming of the Bastille fortress-prison in Paris in 1789 and celebrations symbolise the uprising of the county’s modern state.

However, France’s English newspaper The Connexion reports that the country’s celebrations will be more low-key this year than in the past. Although the traditional Champs-Elysees parade will go ahead as usual, many other events including Nicolas Sarkozy’s garden party have been cancelled, due to the economic crisis.

Yet another heritage site has been added to the Dordogne‘s tourist trail, as SudOuest.com reports that an Abbey built in the eleventh century has reopened its doors to visitors this summer.

The Chancelade Abbey, located in the town of the same name in the centre of the Dordogne, has been shut to the public for six years. Vital restoration work has now been finished and the historic landmark of local life has been opened to the public, allowing visitors to explore a new corner of the Perigord’s rich religious heritage.

According to SudOuest, this latest round of restoration work is just the latest in nearly half a century of dedicated care. The current leader of the association in charge of the Abbey, Katya Caignard, has inherited the work of her father Jacques Caignard, who worked throughout his life to maintain the local heritage site.

The Chancelade Abbey was first built in 1132 by the monks of St Augustine. As well as the church building itself, the Abbey features cloisters, lodgings for the monks and their visitors, several workshops, stables and a 30 by 9 metre vat used to distill wine in times past. One final addition to the picturesque site is an adjoining two hectare park that lies between the Beauronne river and flood way, offering “beautiful views” over the buildings in the Abbey grounds.

Chancelade may already be known to history buffs familiar with the Dordogne, however. In 1888 the town became briefly famous following the discovery a pre-historic skeleton found in a nearby cave shelter, its position indicating it had been given a ritual burial. At the time several people thought that it was a newly discovered predecessor to the Eskimos, though now the “chancelade man” has been identified as a Cro-Magnon.

A new geological tourist attraction in the Dordogne is proving a success, reports SudOuest.com.

Since opening to the public in May this year, the Tourtoirac cave has been visited by around 9,000 tourists and cave explorers. Featuring the same breathtaking geological phenomenon as the region’s other underground attractions, visitors have been drawn to the alien atmosphere of the cave.

Filled with the millenia-old concretions that have fascinated spelunkers throughout the world, the cave boasts an eerie and fascinating environment utterly unlike the surface. The ambient temperature of 12 degrees that persists throughout the small system of caverns and grotto’s will also be welcome to visitors sweating in the Dordogne’s current heat.

“It’s a beautiful grotto with a wide variety of concretions,” said Bernard Cazeau, president of the General Council of the North Dordogne. He says that new features are being identified and studied with each trip to the site. “We discover other things that are not necessarily seen the first time,” said Cazeau.

The cave’s transformation to a public attraction has not been an entirely smooth one however. First discovered in 1995 by Jean-Luc Seriex, the cave system was originally flooded in several places and extremely difficult to explore. It was only through repeated expeditions that its dimensions were mapped – expeditions that were not without danger. On one attempt shortly after its discovery both Jean-Luc Sireix and another caver would lose their life.

Yet Jean Luc’s enthusiasm for exploring this natural wonder inspired both her father and members of the Tourtoirac council to keep trying to make the cave accessible to a wider audience. For over a decade, Mayor Dominic Durand has fought to secure the cave for the public and add another tourist attraction to the Northern region of the department.

“Many people were against this project,” says Durand, “these negative energies have given us more strength to get there.”

Mayor Durand says he is proud of the cave’s popularity among visitors despite a lack of advertising. “Word of mouth works very well,” he said, adding that this season he hoped to make Cave Tourtoirac part of the circuit of tourist destinations passing through the area, which includes the nearby castle of Hautefort.

A festival of knives may seem like an unattractive prospect at first but visitors to the Dordogne in August should take note of an event celebrating the simple yet essential item of cutlery.

Unless you’re on a French holiday in the area on either the 7th or 8th of August, you’ll be unlikely to see an event similar to the small festival held in Nontron for the past 15 years anywhere else.

Each year over a hundred expert cutlers – the craftsmen who make the finest blades for use in the kitchen – along with thousands of visitors flock to the city square. The festival boasts exhibitions from chefs and craftsmen on the best use and best types of knife for preparing the culinary treats the region is famed for, as well as stalls selling some of the cuisine itself.

Speaking to Sud Ouest, the Mayor of Nontron Pierre Giry says that the festival was launched during the election programme of 1995. “At the time, Gerald Chaperon [former mayor] owned the knife shop and planned to step down from office,” says Mayor Giry, “We decided that if were elected, we would do something about the knife.” He says that the plan worked better than he expected.

The city now boasts two specialist cutlers, as well as a small museum dedicated to the art. The festival will take place between 10am and 8pm on Saturday and on Sunday, between 10am and 7pm. Entrance is free for children under 16 years but adults will have to pay an admission fee of 5 euros for one day or 7 euros for a weekend pass.

Taking a French holiday is one of the most popular summer activities for British families and the Dordogne is no exception to the country’s convenient, cosmopolitan appeal. Yet though the region has plenty to offer all year round, for families with younger children then there are few better times than now – during the French school holiday.

Whilst parents and older children are well catered all year round by the Dordogne’s rich history, fine foods and vintage wines, over the next few weeks seasonal activities launched for younger children will give the region a special draw for a limited time. Online news website Sud-Ouest presents a list of some of the major events in the Dordogne’s major municipal centre, Perigueux.

Known for its sporting facilities, Perigueux is offering children between the age of seven and 12 discounted or free use of table tennis, mini hockey and handball facilities as well as access to canoeing and climbing courses. However the city council isn’t just hoping to boost access to physical past times but also to cultural activities.

Between July 15 and August 15 the Perigueux Tourist Office is offering children aged 6-12 the chance to explore the city through guided workshops. The programme sees kids visit the Mataguerre tower, the medival town, carry shields like the historic pages of the medieval era, before delivering a final report on the city’s history to the office.

The town’s museum, Vesunna, is also offering youngsters the chane to explore the archeological techniques that are used throughout the Dordogne to reveal the area’s rich heritage. Childreen betwen the ages of seven and 14 can take part in both workshops and laboratoy searches from 1600 onwards for an entrance fee of just one euro.