Shops selling canned foie gras are everywhere. While prices haven't skyrocketed, in restaurants you'll find English menu translations you'll be able to laugh over for years. That said, the medieval center of Sarlat is, indeed, a tourist town. Sarlat is located in the heart of the Périgord Noir and makes a fine base for your travels. Village Troglodytique de la Madeleine and Roque St-Christophe - where people have lived for 50,000 years or so.įounded in the eighth century, in Sarlat you'll find a beautifully restored 17th- and 18th-century core evocative enough for the town to be featured in many French films. Most of the paintings here date back to the Magdalenian (12,000 bc).īeynac - Cap Blanc - Castelnaud - Visit the restored castle that crowns the picturesque town of Beynac, see the three-dimensional carved horses of Cap Blanc, then go to the castle at Castelnaud and see how all that siege machinery worked. Les Eyzies - The National Museum of Prehistory, lunch at the Cro-Magnon Hotel (built into the limestone cliff, highly recommended cuisine and reasonable lodging prices), then a visit to Font de Gaume cave, just outside the tiny village of Les Eyzies.
To the east of Sarlat is the interesting pilgrimage site of Rocamadour. It doesn't take much driving to cover this area, the distance between Sarlat and Les Eyzies is only 10 km. The map above shows the relationships between Sarlat, Les Eyzies, and Montignac, a golden triangle of history and prehistory. Most of the allure of the Dordogne is found in the countryside. You'll need a car, despite the fact that there are train stations in Les Eyzies and Sarlat. You'll save money by renting a vacation house for that length of time, either in the restored medieval center of Sarlat or the countryside. How much time need to visit Périgord Noir? If you like history, ancient castles and fortifications, prehistoric painted caves, natural beauty, and great cuisine you would not completely cover the area in a week. The center of the study of the region's prehistory is here as well, in the new National Museum of Prehistory perched on a cliff in the village of Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac. The region is dark with trees, especially walnuts, for which it is famous, as well as being known for its black truffles. Over 150 sites line the Vézère river alone. It is here that the underground is laced with prehistoric painted and engraved caves. The Périgord Noir (black) is probably of the most interest to the traveler.Wines take the names of the towns on the map, Bergerac, and Monbazilac. The Périgord Pourpre (purple) is, as you might expect, a wine region.The Périgord Blanc (white) is so named because of the landscape's exposed limestone, which has been used for building materials in the cities.The Périgord Verte (green) is named for the verdant hills around the center, Nontron.
The region is divided into four parts, the orange dots represent the primary market towns.
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