NotrebellefranceGuide & map of tourist sites
Martel

Photo : Franck-fnba / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Home / Occitanie / Lot / Martel

Villages · LotWorth a visit

Martel

Lot, Occitanie

Martel is a medieval town in the north of the Lot, nicknamed "the town of seven towers". Founded in the eleventh century around a salt market, it was the capital of the Quercy part of the viscounty of Turenne and enjoyed great mercantile prosperity. It is ranked among the Most Beautiful Villages of France.

The centre keeps its wooden covered market, mansions, lanes and towers, including that of the Raymondie palace, the former palace of the viscounts. The visit on foot takes an hour or two. Martel is also labelled Site remarquable du goût. It lies near Rocamadour, Souillac and the Dordogne valley.

In our collectionsThe Most Beautiful Villages of France

← Other sites in Lot

Nearby sights

Carennac
Villages · Lot

Carennac

OccitanieWorth a visit

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.

Rocamadour
Villages · Lot

Rocamadour

OccitanieWorth a visit

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.

Loubressac
Villages · Lot

Loubressac

OccitanieWorth a visit

The flowered lanes of Loubressac converge on a shaded square where the church of the twelfth and sixteenth centuries rises.

Autoire
Villages · Lot

Autoire

OccitanieWorth a visit

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…

Cardaillac
Villages · Lot

Cardaillac

OccitanieWorth a visit

The village is firmly anchored on its rocky spur in Haut-Quercy. The name Cardaillac rings clear, a little Gascon.

Saint-Cirq-Lapopie
Villages · Lot

Saint-Cirq-Lapopie

OccitanieWorth a visit

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.