Photo : Commune de Saint Léon sur Vézère / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
At Thonac, in the Dordogne, the Château de Belcayre stands on a rocky spur rising several dozen metres above the Vézère.
It is a 14th-century residence, remodelled in the 16th century and again in the 19th. It consists of a main building fronted by a gatehouse and a drawbridge, next to a 15th-century round tower with machicolations.
The medieval fortress built on a sheer drop overlooks the Vézère valley. It is enclosed by walls and bordered by deep moats.
Between Montignac and Les Eyzies, the fortified house of Reignac is a fully furnished troglodyte 'cliff castle' above the Vézère.
In the Vézère valley, on a wild site, the château de Commarque was built in the twelfth century by the abbots of Sarlat to counter the power of the Beynacs.
Puymartin, built around 1270 and once surrounded below by a village of the same name, served as a border between France and England when the Hundred Years' War began; it was then pillaged, stripped of its crenellations, ramparts, towers and roofs.
Built at the end of the 15th century, the Château de l'Herm was abandoned after a series of crimes.
Built in 1817, the château closely resembles the White House, completed in 1802, a likeness much discussed.