Rough Guides - The Rough Guide to The Dordogne & The Lot (Travel Guide eBook)

This Rough Guide is one of a new generation of informative and easy-to-use travel-guide ebooks that guarantees you make the most of your trip. An essential tool for pre-trip planning, it also makes a great travel companion when youre on the road.

From the section.

Detailed area maps feature in the guide chapters and are also listed in the , accessible from the table of contents. Depending on your hardware, you can double-tap on the maps to see larger-scale versions, or select different scales. There are also thumbnails below more detailed maps in these cases, you can opt to zoom left/top or zoom right/bottom or view the full map. The screen-lock function on your device is recommended when viewing enlarged maps. Make sure you have the latest software updates, too.

Throughout the guide, weve flagged up our favourite places a perfectly sited hotel, an atmospheric caf, a special restaurant with the author pick icon . You can select your own favourites and create a personalized itinerary by bookmarking the sights, venues and activities that are of interest, giving you the quickest possible access to everything youll need for your time away.

The green, secluded valleys of the Dordogne and the Lot have long attracted artists and lovers of the good life. In the many caves that tunnel into the honey-coloured limestone cliffs, prehistoric peoples painted some of the worlds earliest masterpieces, depicting the pot-bellied ponies, mammoths and muscular bison that once lived in the regions woodlands. Later occupants expressed their faith by building the delicate Romanesque churches found on many a hilltop, as well as an array of abbeys and towering cathedrals, while the legacy of a less refined and more bellicose era lies in the medieval fortresses perched on craggy pinnacles of rock.

zoom left

zoom right

In addition to this richly layered history, the Dordogne and Lot are endowed with a tremendous variety of scenery, from the dry limestone plateaux of the causses , sliced through with narrow gorges, to densely wooded valleys and the serried ranks of gnarled grape vines which yield the regions fabulous wines. Through these landscapes slide the great rivers that unify and define southwest France: running swiftly through its deeply cloven valley, the Vzre hurtles into the Dordogne , which in turn flows placidly out to the Atlantic coast. Further south the serpentine Lot writhes its way across the country to join the mighty Garonne , which along with its tributaries, the Tarn and Aveyron , mark this regions southern border.

This peaceful corner of France is best savoured at its own unhurried pace. There is always some forgotten corner to stumble upon, a market or a village fte to enjoy, or something to catch the eye, from the postcard-perfect villages of blue-shuttered stone houses to fields of luminous sunflowers and gurgling willow-lined rivers. The Dordogne and the Lot are certainly not undiscovered indeed, some sights are numbered among the most visited in the country but the regions heartland is still steeped in what the French call the douceur de vivre , the gentle way of life, where theres plenty of time for a long, lazy lunch, be it a picnic of market-fresh produce under the shade of a riverbank tree or a restaurant spread of the regions classic dishes.