Château de la Rivière
The approach to Château de la Rivière did not quite provide the sweeping vista I was expecting. After all, having seen pictures of the château, I knew it was grand, picturesque, flamboyant even. I also knew that it enjoyed a rather commanding hillside position, overlooking the vineyards below, and the Dordogne in the distance. I couldn’t have driven past it in error, as nowadays Château de la Rivière is impossible to overlook; for years the château had hidden beneath a layer of dirt and a cloak of greenery, so much so that the locals had become blind to its existence, the buildings blending in seamlessly with the surrounding trees.
But since those times I knew a new owner had cleared away the ivy, and restored the stonework beneath to its original creamy-white. Rumour has it that the locals, seeing this reinvigorated building gleaming brilliantly in the Bordeaux sunshine, pointed and asked each other who had built the ‘new’ château on the hill. No, I had certainly not driven past any such edifice. And yet here I was at a rather anonymous gatepost, labelled as the entrance to Château de la Rivière (pictured below). It was something of a disappointment.
Happily there was no strange force at work here; I was at the right Château de la Rivière for a start. It was just that I had arrived at the back entrance.
