Le Belvedere de Belves

We were in Domme around sunset for some landscape photography of the Dordogne River valley and stopping for dinner seemed like a natural choice. For a Saturday night, the restaurants was busy but not full and we were able to have a table four at the edge of the terrace closest to the view. The menu was similar to those of other restaurants in the Sarlat/Dordogne area, but cooking in this case was exceptionally good. Combined with the view at sunset, this place is hard to beat for a dinner out. In fact, we went back again for dinner the next night (our last one in France) hoping for an even better sunset (and we were not disappointed either by Mother Nature or the chef). As others have mentioned, the service was friendly but a little too relaxed at time though the staff responded in a good-natured manner to a little prompting.

I arrived in Belves by train and walked up the steep hill to find the Belvedere right there, so no problem on that front. Check in is at 5pm - somewhat annoying - but they agreed to keep my luggage while I discovered this very sweet village. It's absolutely beautiful. The hotel is in an old building full of character, lovely spiral stairs and all the squeaks you'd expect. The room was larger than expected with a very traditional French hotel feel. The view was out onto the chapel and in the morning, a hot air balloon was floating around. There seemed to be a floorboard missing in the bathroom but I didn't fall through so all good. The shower was hand held so lucky it wasn't a hair washing day. The room was immaculately clean, as were the common areas of the hotel. Breakfast was immense with a lot of choice - meats, cheeses, yoghurt, pastries (go early and they're still warm). I had dinner in therestaurant as it was a village-is-closed day with few dining options. Service was fast and friendly, the food sublime. My only problem was with the bed. It was uneven, obviously well-worn and didn't make for a good sleep.

We stayed for one night at the Belvedere. The bedroom was rather cramped with a smallish bed which was not particularly comfortable. The bathroom was OK but there was a bit of a dip in the floor just inside the door. Having said that the food in the restaurant was excellent both for dinner and breakfast. However we seemed to have hit on waiter-training season so service was a bit hit and miss. Parking near the hotel was quite tricky as there are plenty of blue-marked spaces (not for visitors) and there is a difficult one-way system (at least it seemed like that in the dark).