Looking for a refreshing summer break this year? Well here’s how you can mix city with countryside…

The original idea was to promptly get down to the Dordogne for a bit of kayaking adventure, however I managed to persuade my partner to add a couple city breaks either side of the trip. After all, we live in the middle of beyond in the Welsh Brecon Beacons, and had to fly from London to Paris. So we took a train to Paddington and having searched for comfortable but relatively inexpensive London hotels, we ended up staying in a rather lovely one near High Street Kensington and Knightsbridge called Kensington Close. From here we followed the “tourist trail” and went to the V&A, Harrods, lunched at a small restaurant along the embankment and ventured over to the London Eye and the Aquarium.

The next morning was a beautiful bright sunny day and spirits were high as we flew from Heathrow to Paris and picked up our small hire car. We pointed the car south and headed out of the city for the start of our adventure on the Dordogne River. This River has always interested us; a close friend recently told us that the middle of the river is quite easy to paddle, so we were up for the challenge. The river travels about 500 km and, it runs from the Massif Central along Bergerac and Bordeaux to the Royan at the Atlantic Ocean. The Dordogne can be divided into four parts, the upper river with lots of dams, the middle stretch where it descends at a rate of 0.5m/km and passes through mountains, the descending part from Limeuil to Bergerac incorporating some dams and the last stretch to the ocean. Many parts of the mid River have immeasurably beautiful scenery and it seemed sensible to paddle one of these middle stretches.

We stopped at Vitrac where we were easily able to rent our Kayak, an open gate Cherokee 5.50m vessel which really looked the part at 44 kg! At this stage I was beginning to feel apprehensive; parts of the river flow very quickly especially at this time of the year when the water levels are unusually high after lots of rain. I made sure we had good life jackets on just in case we were capsized in one of the many rapids and off we headed. The first day or two were quite exhilarating, lots of quite technical rapids for us relatively inexperienced paddlers, and a couple places where we thought we may be in trouble but managed to manoeuvre the boat at quite a speed. We passed by a small completely deserted village called Gluges and on the third day on to Pinsac, where we stayed at a fairly average campsite but got to visit some amazing caves, Grottes de Lacave.

The fourth and fifth day took us from St Julian de Lampon and on to Cenac, the river was now easier to cope with and the scenery was becoming more picturesque by the day, here we visited the old city of Domme, perched high up on the rocks. After good nights sleep we headed out again to Beynac, on the way we passed a stunning town called La Rogue-Gageac, where I made a mental note to come back and stay one day! At Beynac we ended our journey; glad to be on dry land we stumbled out of our kayaks and enjoyed a long lazy lunch before returning our equipment and embarking on the last leg of our journey.

I was delighted at this stage that the holiday was not over, we still had our city break in Paris before returning to London. I had booked a hotel in Paris, a modern but luxurious 4 star hotel situated near the Arc de Triomphe; this hotel ticked all the boxes at an affordable price which included breakfast. We were right in the heart of the city; we had the Champs Elyses, the Seine and all the major sites at our fingertips. The Wardorf Arc de Triomphe even had a spa where we rested our tired limbs. Combining these city breaks with an activity holiday was fantastic, especially as we got such an excellent deal on the accommodation which made our holiday pretty good value all round.