Photo : Segala75 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Puy-l'Evèque
Puy-l'Évêque is a village of the Lot, perched above the river, in the Cahors vineyard. Its name recalls the suzerainty of the bishops of Cahors, whose thirteenth-century keep, near the town hall, is the last remnant of the palace.
The village is tiered in a maze of lanes and stairs lined with golden-stone houses. The lower streets bear names of old trades, like Rue des Tanneurs or Rue des Teinturiers. They descend to the cale, the quay from which gabares, traditional flat-bottomed boats, once loaded the region's wines for Bordeaux. Navigation on the Lot died out with the arrival of the railway in the nineteenth century.
The church of Saint-Sauveur, of southern Gothic style, stands out for its porch tower and its fifteenth-century turret. The Hanging Gardens route, laid out in 2016 on ruined medieval houses, links the upper town to the river.
