A thousand and one castles that fell out of a sack, a cave found by a dog, a music-hall star who adopted twelve children, and a village whose name comes from an Italian bishop.
Checked 11 September 2026. Hours and prices change, so follow the links to the official sites before you set off. Distances are from Sol du Mazel.
The sack of castles
The Dordogne is called the land of 1001 châteaux. Nobody has ever counted 1001. The tourist board reckons over 619 castles and 382 manors, which is still more than anywhere else in France. The legend says a giant was carrying a sack of 1001 castles, the sack split, and the wind scattered them across the Périgord. Dordogne Périgord Tourisme.
Four boys and a dog
Lascaux was found on 12 September 1940 by Marcel Ravidat, aged 18, with Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel and Simon Coencas. The story that his dog Robot fell down the hole is the one everyone tells. The official Lascaux site says Ravidat embellished it over the years. The original cave closed to the public in 1963 because visitors' breath was damaging the paintings, which is why you now visit a millimetre-perfect copy. Ministry of Culture, Lascaux.
The front line
For much of the Hundred Years War the Dordogne river was the border. Beynac was French. Castelnaud, five kilometres downstream, was English, and changed hands five or six times. Standing on the battlements of one, you can see the other. Château de Castelnaud.
Two kings, two grids
Domme was laid out for the French king Philippe le Hardi in 1281. Three years later the English king Edward I answered with Monpazier, twenty kilometres away, the most perfect grid of all the bastides, with 32 listed monuments in one small town. Both are on the list of France's most beautiful villages. Les Plus Beaux Villages de France.
Josephine Baker's rainbow
The American singer bought the Château des Milandes in 1947, adopted twelve children of different origins from 1953, calling them her Rainbow Tribe, built a theme park in the grounds, ran out of money and was evicted in 1968, barricading herself in the kitchen. She was reburied in the Panthéon in Paris in 2021. Château des Milandes.
Gaslight in Sarlat
Sarlat was the pilot town for André Malraux's 1962 law protecting historic centres. The result is the densest concentration of listed buildings in any French town, and the old centre is still lit by gas lamps at night. Sarlat Tourisme.
Bananas on the cliff
La Roque-Gageac faces due south and its cliff stores the heat. In 1970 a botanist, Gérard Dorin, planted an exotic garden by the church: bananas, palms, lemons and olives, in the middle of France.
A river with a UNESCO badge
On 11 July 2012 the whole Dordogne basin became a UNESCO biosphere reserve, the first built around an entire river network, 24,000 square kilometres with 39 species of fish. UNESCO.
Our own village
Saint-Pompon takes its name from Pomponius, a sixth-century bishop of Naples. A Hospitaller house, the Hospitalis de Sancta Pomponia, is recorded here in 1269. In 1589 Protestants seized the church, were driven out, and the Huguenot captain Geoffroy de Vivans came back, killed 35 Catholic League soldiers and burned the castle. The fifteenth-century keep survived and still stands. The village had 373 people at the 2023 count. Saint-Pompon on Wikipedia.
Walnuts, truffles, duck
The Noix du Périgord has its own appellation, with four permitted varieties: Marbot, Franquette, Corne and Grandjean. Foie Gras du Périgord holds an EU geographical indication. The black truffle, the "black diamond", is sold at Sarlat's winter market from December to mid March, by the gram.
“It is quiet, it is rural, and it is four acres of Périgord countryside with a heated pool in the middle of it.”
Andy and Katie Tanswell
Questions we are asked
- Why is the Dordogne called the land of 1001 castles?
- It is a legend about a giant's sack splitting and scattering castles across the region. The real count from the tourist board is over 600 castles and nearly 400 manors, still the most in France.
- Who discovered Lascaux?
- Four teenagers, Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel and Simon Coencas, on 12 September 1940. The dog Robot is part of the popular story.