Some Honest Words
Before We Travel Together
A Landscape That Carries More Than Beauty
From Maquis to Médoc unfolds in one of the most beautiful regions of France. Wooded ridges rise above the Dordogne River. Medieval towns glow in honey-colored stone. Vineyards stretch toward horizons that seem untouched by time.
But this landscape has carried more than beauty.
In the forests of the Périgord Noir, resistance cells once relied on terrain for concealment and survival. Along the river corridor, detention sites enforced confinement and control. These were not distant battlefields; they were valleys, farms, villages, and roads where ordinary life continued under extraordinary pressure.
Unlike regions marked by sweeping front lines, this part of France experienced something quieter and more spatial. Movement mattered. Rivers carried goods and information. Forest cover offered protection. Roads exposed vulnerability. Geography shaped possibility.
As we travel west from wooded encampments to the port city of Bordeaux, we witness another transformation. The same river systems that once facilitated secrecy and survival also sustained agriculture and trade. Local vineyards rooted in valley soil grew into global systems of classification and commerce. The landscape remained constant, even as its purpose shifted.
This seminar does not dwell in tragedy, nor does it ignore it. We will visit sites of detention and reflect on the realities of Vichy authority. We will stand in forests where concealment meant survival. And we will share meals, wine, conversation, and laughter in towns shaped by centuries of continuity.
There will be beauty. There will be wine. There will be sunsets over riverbanks and long dinners in stone courtyards. There will also be moments of reflection — on movement, power, memory, and the ways landscapes carry human experience forward.
We invite you to travel attentively. To notice how geography shapes history. To consider how the same river can carry secrecy in one era and commerce in another. And to hold both truths at once.
We look forward to sharing this journey west with you.
— Anne-Marie & Rob
Co-founders, Passport Perspectives Abroad