Lot: what to see and do
48 sites listed in the département. Carved by the spectacular meanders of its river, the Lot holds one of the densest heritages in France, between Rocamadour, a sacred city clinging to its cliff, and Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, a suspended stone village. The Gouffre de Padirac and the causses complete this unspoilt Quercy identity.
Chemin de Halage du Lot
River navigation, sunk by the advent of the railway, had its hours of glory, which then rhymed with gabares, large wooden barges used to carry goods.
Fontaine de Pescalerie
At Cabrerets, in the Lot, the Pescalerie spring is a karst resurgence that feeds a calcifying waterfall at the foot of a cliff in the Célé valley.
Grotte de bellevue
Located 1.5 km north-west of Marcilhac-sur-Célé, the Bellevue cave offers concretions of remarkable richness.
La cascade du cirque d'Autoire
The Autoire waterfall tumbles from the top of the cliffs of a remarkable rocky cirque with lush vegetation.
Autoire
At random in the lanes taken, you discover, dazzled, a fountain surrounded by half-timbered houses; further on, the overhangs of old white dwellings with brown tile roofs; elsewhere, one, two, three manor houses, each prettier than the last, all smart and flanked by turrets…
Capdenac-le-Haut
Perched on a peninsula-shaped rock overlooking the meander of the Lot, the village has over time adorned itself with an exceptional architectural heritage.
Cardaillac
The village is firmly anchored on its rocky spur in Haut-Quercy. The name Cardaillac rings clear, a little Gascon.
Carennac
The town of Carennac has a very picturesque charm with its blond-stone houses, its brown and russet tile roofs adorned with turrets or tall chimneys, its delightful wooden balconies, its fine carved windows and its Renaissance ogives.
Cascade du Saut-Grand
The Cayla stream rises at 700 m altitude and rushes down the slopes of the Ségala. Its highest fall, called the Saut-Grand waterfall, plunges 15 metres above the village of Latouille-Lentillac.
Chemin de fer touristique du Haut Quercy
Château Lagrézette
Château d'Assier
A partly ruined Renaissance château of which only the entrance wing survives. A very fine sculpted ensemble, built from 1520 by Galiot de Genouillac, Grand Equerry of France, Grand Master of Artillery of Francis I.
Château de Castelnau-Bretenoux
Held from the eleventh to the early fifteenth century by the family of that name, then by a collateral branch, Castelnau was the seat of an important Quercy châtellenie that gave bishops of Rodez and Cahors in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Château de Chambert
Château de Lacapelle Marival
Château de Lantis
Château de Larroque-Toirac
Château de Mercuès
Château de Montal
26 km from Rocamadour, visit the château de Montal, a jewel of the French Renaissance with unique sculpted decoration.
Château de Pechrigal
Château de la Blainie
Cirque de Vènes
Forêt des Singes
A park of new design, the "forêt des singes" invites you on a pleasant shaded walk among more than 100 monkeys in complete freedom and in direct contact with the public.
Gouffre de Padirac
The Padirac chasm is a natural cavity 75 m deep that opens in the surface of the Causse de Gramat in the Lot, beneath which, at 103 m, flows an underground river.
Grotte des Merveilles
Discovered on 16 October 1920 and listed as a Historic Monument on 16 May 1925, the Grotte des Merveilles opens on the Causse de Rocamadour, a vast limestone plateau eaten away by the flow of underground water.
Grotte de Lacave
Vast caves with concretions where an electric train and a lift bring you to the starting point, galleries leading to the Lake hall and the Hall of Marvels where "black light" creates fine effects.
Grotte de Pech Merle
Known to prehistoric man, who performed the rites of his religion there, this cave was rediscovered 200 centuries later, in 1922.
Grotte de Presque
5 km from Saint-Céré (Lot).
Grotte de Roland
Grottes de Cougnac
About 50,000 years ago the entrance porch of the Cougnac caves was occupied by Neanderthal man.
La cascade du Saut de Vieyres
A circuit from the very beautiful hamlet of Vieyres lets you discover the Hermit's cave and its viewpoint as well as the famous Saut de Vieyres waterfall.
Le Pont du Diable à Valentré
The Valentré bridge is the emblematic monument of Cahors; it was built from 1308 on the initiative of the town's consuls.
Loubressac
The flowered lanes of Loubressac converge on a shaded square where the church of the twelfth and sixteenth centuries rises.
Martel
A medieval town of Quercy nicknamed "the town of seven towers", with its covered market and stone mansions.
Musée Champollion, Les Ecritures du Monde
The museum's collections tell the fabulous adventure of writing, which appeared in different places in the world as long as 5,300 years ago for the oldest.
Parc Durandal
Parc animalier de Gramat
In the heart of the Causses du Quercy Nature Park, the Wildlife Park is a major site at the crossroads between the town of Rocamadour (1.2 million visitors) and the Padirac Chasm (400,000 visitors).
Phosphatières du Cloup d'Aural
The Phosphatières du Cloup d'Aural, a former nineteenth-century mine where fossils of animals dating from 55 to 18 million years ago were found.
Prehisto Dino Parc
Puy-l'Evèque
Perched above the Lot, Puy-l'Évêque is formed of a maze of lanes and stairs lined with fine golden-stone houses that descend to the slipway where the gabares once moored before leaving for Bordeaux.
Quercyland
Reptiland
REPTILAND, the largest collection of reptiles in France, goes against traditional exhibitions by giving priority to beauty rather than danger, to the marvellous rather than the spectacular. 260 animals (104 species) shown in daylight.
Rocamadour
In the heart of Haut-Quercy, as if clinging to a mighty cliff rising 150 metres above the deep Alzou valley, this small Marian town has been a renowned place of pilgrimage since the twelfth century.
Rocher des Aigles
As part of a show of raptors in flight, the Rocher des Aigles presents, in ideal conditions of keeping, in line with their biological requirements, more than a hundred rare birds of prey from all over the world.
Saint-Cirq-Lapopie
This village is largely classified as a historic monument. It stretches along a main street cut by picturesque, very flowery little lanes, carriérous or stairs linking houses.
Site de Rocamadour
The church of Saint-Sauveur and the crypt of Saint-Amadour are classified as UNESCO World Heritage, as part of the Routes of Saint James of Compostela.
Cahors
