©Lascaux IV / Les Coflocs / CDT 24
In 1940, four boys searching for their lost dog scrambled into a crevice and found horses and aurochs painted on the walls fifteen thousand years earlier. Lascaux had just reopened to the world.
The original cave stays closed to protect its colours, but its replica, Lascaux IV, recreates every brushstroke with striking precision — right down to the darkness and mystery of stepping back to the very beginning.
Around it, the Vézère Valley is packed with major sites. Explore the cliffside dwellings of La Roque Saint-Christophe, try your hand at cave painting or fire-lighting in a hands-on workshop, then go deeper at the National Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies.
Look up at La Roque-Gageac and the cliff seems to swallow the village whole — or hold it up, depending how you see it. Honey-stone houses stack against the rock face all the way to a troglodyte fort, a hundred and twenty metres above the river. The climb leaves you a little breathless, but the view from the top is worth every step. Back down, wander under the banana trees of the exotic garden, then board a gabare (flat-bottomed river barge) for a fresh look at the village from the water.
Further north, the stone changes colour. In Collonges-la-Rouge, the sandstone turns the colour of dried blood under blue-grey slate roofs. Domme stands guard from its hilltop, its panoramic ramparts hiding a genuinely magical show cave. Castelnaud-la-Chapelle curls up at the foot of its castle. And Turenne, once a viscounty powerful enough to stand up to the kings of France, still keeps watch from its promontory.
©Bastide de Monflanquin / Teddy Verneuil – Lezbroz
Walk through a fortified gate into Monpazier and you step straight into another century, or a film set. A cat dozes in the shade of a timber-framed house, a balcony overflows with flowers, and under the arcades of Place des Cornières, crates spill over with melons or walnuts while conversations linger over a glass of wine.
The South-West has more than three hundred bastides, the Middle Ages’ answer to new towns, built to house merchants and farmers. In Monflanquin, climb up to the Cap del Pech for a view of Château de Biron’s silhouette against the countryside. In Villeréal, Thursday brings its own market, gathered around a rare two-storey market hall.
Saturday morning in Sarlat works up an appetite, stall by stall: strawberries, melons and tomatoes in summer, walnuts, cabécou (goat cheese) and poultry once the weather turns. The eyes feast too, tracing the silhouettes and facades of the medieval houses. It carries on into the evening, when gas lamps light up the lanes for a theatrical backdrop — no festival required.
In Périgueux, wander from Gallo-Roman ruins to Renaissance mansions, watched over by five eyes rather than one (the five domes of Saint-Front Cathedral) with a genuine thrill in store on the rooftop tour. In Bergerac, head down to the quays to dive into the world of wine, then board a gabare under the bronze nose of Cyrano, who stands watch on Place de la Myrpe between two half-timbered houses.
©Sarlat / CRTNA – Les Coflocs
©La Vallée de la Dordogne depuis Beynac / CRTNA – Clara Ferrand
Forget the history books: this is the Middle Ages as a field trip. At Castelnaud, fire a crossbow and watch a trebuchet launch a stone boulder. From the ramparts, spot the silhouette of Beynac, its old rival, across the river. Feel free to daydream like a troubadour over the panoramic view of the Dordogne, or get up close to the patchwork of stone houses and cliffside villages on a via ferrata.
Back on the road, or in a canoe, the search for the next tower never really stops. Among the must-sees: Marqueyssac‘s hanging gardens, the Milandes, once home to Joséphine Baker… Eventually, you lose count.
At Eyrignac, kick off your shoes to feel the cool grass underfoot while water from seven springs murmurs between the topiary. Yew, box and hornbeam are clipped into spheres, cones and waves, as if a hedge had taken ballet lessons. Linger in the white garden, five hundred rose bushes around five ponds, before slipping under the hornbeam walk, a hundred metres of perfectly aligned green shade.
Further on, the box hedges of Marqueyssac roll like waves along the clifftop, facing Château de Castelnaud. In Terrasson, the Jardins de l’Imaginaire tell thirteen tales of water, bamboo and waterfalls. In Limeuil, climb to the old hilltop fort for a 360-degree panorama over the meeting point of the Dordogne and Vézère rivers.
©Jardins de Marqueyssac / Emanuele_Bartolini-CRTNA
©Brive-la-Gaillarde / CRTNA-FEDER
In Brive-la-Gaillarde, under the Halle Georges-Brassens (named after the singer who made it famous without ever setting foot in it) more than two hundred producers set up their stalls at dawn, three mornings a week. In winter, truffles take over: every Saturday from December to February, a sworn inspector checks each batch before the bell rings the market open.
Across the valley, the same ritual plays out under other market halls: Périgord walnuts, foie gras, wild mushrooms, cabécou and Bergerac-Duras wines change hands along with a recipe or two. A walnut tasting often leads to the Denoix distillery, in Brive since 1839, where the fruit is turned into an amber liqueur.
There’s real pleasure in tasting a great wine in its birthplace. At Château de Monbazillac, vine terraces stretch out over the valley, and the wine itself, so the story goes, was born of an oversight. In the Middle Ages, monks busy elsewhere are said to have left their grapes on the vine too long, until a microscopic fungus, noble rot, coated them in a grey haze. They harvested anyway… and discovered a golden nectar with the scent of honey and candied apricot.
The wine route winds on toward Bergerac and Pécharmant, on the hillsides above the Dordogne, then south to Duras, on the banks of the Dropt. Taste at the winemaker’s cellar, ask for advice at the Maison des Vins on Quai Cyrano, or carry the tasting through to the table, paired with local, seasonal dishes. Cheers.
©Le Pont-Canal d’Agen / Teddy Verneuil Lezbroz
There’s rugby, there are prunes (the gourmet emblem of a generous terroir) and there’s the river with its side canal, an engineering feat that peaks here with the pont-canal (canal bridge) crossing the Garonne. You could spend all day admiring one, tasting another (plain, in Armagnac, or chocolate-coated at an artisan shop downtown) and marvelling at the third.
In the old town’s lanes, half-timbered houses lead the way to the Renaissance mansions housing the Musée des Beaux-Arts. It’s an easy step from there to a walk or bike ride between plane trees and locks along the Canal des Deux Mers, or even a short boat trip on the water.
Set off to explore our destinations: from the foothills of the Pyrenees to hidden villages, from surfing sessions on the coast to hikes in the wide open spaces of the Limousin. You’re bound to find a holiday that takes your fancy.
To find out more about the destination or the experiences on offer there, here are a few pages that invite you to continue your exploration, either online or in person.
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