COLLONGES-LA-ROUGE, 7km east of Turenne, is the epitome of rustic charm with its red-sandstone houses, pepper-pot towers and pink-candled chestnut trees, although you need to time your visit carefully, as the village is now very much on the tourist bus circuit. Though small-scale, there's a grandeur about the place, as if the resident Turenne administrators were aping, within their means, the grandiloquence of their superiors. On the main square a twelfth-century church testifies to the imbecility of shedding blood over religious differences: here, side by side, Protestant and Catholic conducted their services simultaneously. Outside, the covered market hall still retains its old-fashioned baker's oven.If you want to stay somewhere nearby, it's best to head downhill a few minutes to MEYSSAC, a town built in the same red sandstone, though less grandly, to the very pleasant Relais du Quercy (tel 05.55.25.40.31, fax 05.55.25.36.22; €30–40; closed three weeks in Nov; restaurant from €11.50), or the campsite, Moulin de la Valane (tel 05.55.25.41.59, fax 05.55.84.07.28; closed Oct–April). On weekdays it's possible to get to Collonges by bus from Brive, and with an early start you can see the town and return by the late-afternoon service. The prettiest route on foot from Turenne is along the back lanes through meadow and walnut orchards via SAILLAC (3hr), whose Romanesque church sports an elaborately carved tympanum upheld by a column of spiralling animal motifs.
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