The Instagram hordes are coming for your favorite vacation town. Right now, they are assessing the gelato, ranking the lobster rolls, and blasting videos of themselves onto their digital networks.

Say good-bye to all that and head down to the Dordogne, the rightfully beloved region of France that keeps a decidedly low profile. There’s no TGV to whisk you southward, just a local train from Paris that clocks in at a cool five hours. Waiting for you is the lovely river valley, with rolling green hills and gently glowing limestone buildings.

Though the property may look like a castle, it quickly comes to feel like a home, albeit it a rather grand one.

The intimate towns and handsome farmhouses project a false modesty, though, as over 1,000 châteaux rise up on the banks of the Dordogne River. One of them is the delightful Château de La Treyne.

The Gombert family has overseen the property since 1982, stewarding it through a full renovation.

Approaching the 14th-century château provokes a joyful laugh, at least from me. The warm, sand-colored castle is perched high on a bluff right on the river, its sweet turret heading skyward. If you stood on the terrace and knocked any ash off your Gauloise, it would land in the clear water of the Dordogne.

Can a château be intimate? Château de La Treyne insists so. This Relais & Châteaux property is owned by the Gombert family—headed by Philippe, who was a lawyer in Paris and is now the international president of Relais & Châteaux—and they’ve thoughtfully restored the castle since acquiring it in 1982. There are fewer than 20 bedrooms, and it feels less like a palace than a home, albeit one with a Louis XIII dining room with a fireplace.

In good weather, chef Stéphane Andrieux’s Michelin-starred kitchen serves local specialties on the riverside terrace.

A park extends behind the château with a formal French garden, ancient cedar trees, and a rose garden with strategically placed marble vases and benches. It’s an ideal place to think about your good fortune in having landed in such a wonderful setting. A short walk brings you to a swimming pool and a tennis court. There’s also an organic vegetable garden to keep everything as close to the kitchen as possible.

Though you may prefer to melt by the fire, the property has a pool and miles of walking paths.

And that kitchen is a big part of the equation here. Chef Stéphane Andrieux oversees a Michelin-starred operation that serves dinner in that dining room in the winter and on the terrace looking out over the river when the weather allows. Andrieux takes advantage of many of the area’s glorious delicacies. This is the land of foie gras, after all. (The wonderful W. S. Merwin story “Foie Gras” is set in the area.) And that’s to say nothing of the duck confit, superb lamb, and truffles.

Walnuts are also common, and an unsweetened-chocolate-covered walnut with walnut liqueur was waiting for me before bed. I couldn’t possibly, I told myself, before deciding that I couldn’t live without this ritual. A diet, I reasoned, was waiting for me back home.

When it’s not nice enough to eat outside, meals are served in a Louis XIII dining room with a fireplace.

But you don’t need to be sedentary. There are miles of paths that lead you through the forest and up to the bluff above Château de La Treyne, which has 300 acres to itself. Here, you look out across the river valley and work off the croissants you had for breakfast. I canoed down the Dordogne one day and was excited to learn I could fly-fish in the river.

Foie gras and fly-fishing. Now that’s a dream equation.

David Coggins is the author of four books, including The Believer: A Year in the Fly Fishing Life, and the Contender, a travel newsletter

Photos : courtesy Château de La Treyne (hotel); Matthieu Cellard (dishes); Eric Martin (terrace, restaurant, château by night)