Cultural Landscapes of the Midi-Pyrénées & the Dordogne 2026

Day 1: Tuesday 22 September, Arrive Toulouse

• Tour commences at 2.30pm in the foyer of the Grand Hôtel de l’Opéra
• Welcome meeting
• Orientation Walk
• Basilica Saint-Sernin, Toulouse
• Welcome Dinner at Brasserie Le Bibent

Meeting Point: The tour commences at 2.30pm in the foyer of the Grand Hôtel de l’Opéra situated in the centre of Toulouse.

We commence with a short welcome meeting which will be followed by an orientation walk visiting the great pilgrim church of Saint-Sernin (1075-1096). After the abbey church at Cluny (destroyed during the French Revolution), Saint-Sernin was the largest Romanesque church in France. It was one of the five archetypal pilgrim churches on the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela, the others being Sainte-Foy at Conques, Saint-Martin at Tours, Saint-Martial de Limoges, and the great cathedral at Santiago. All these churches have aisles running down either side of the nave and a deambulatory allowing pilgrims to process through the building to see the relics without disrupting services. Saint-Sernin was constructed from a richly coloured red brick. Its nave, the longest on the pilgrim route, leads to a crossing topped by a magnificent Gothic tiered tower and spire.

We meet again later in the afternoon for a presentation with pre-dinner drinks before enjoying our welcome dinner at Le Bibent, a historic brasserie with an opulent interior. (Overnight Toulouse) D

Day 2: Wednesday 23 September, Toulouse – Carcassonne – Toulouse

• Cité de Carcassonne: Château Comtal and Ramparts
• Basilica of St Nazaire and St Celse, Carcassonne

Today we drive southwest to what was once the medieval frontier between the Kingdom of France and the Spanish kingdom of Aragón, to the walled city of Carcassonne. Before its integration into the French kingdom by Louis IX in 1247, Carcassonne was the stronghold of the Trencavel family, a local viscount either allied to the counts of Barcelona or Toulouse. Fragments of Carcassonne’s Roman walls still exist, within the magnificent concentric rings of medieval ramparts defended by many towers. Louis IX founded a lower city across the River Aude in 1248, and even after it had lost importance as a bastion against Aragón (when the frontier moved further south in 1659) its towers and ramparts made the upper city almost impregnable. During the Hundred Years’ War, the Black Prince destroyed the lower city but could not take Carcassonne proper (1355).

Carcassonne slowly declined to provincial obscurity and its walls fell into such ruin that in the 19th century the French government considered dismantling them. Under the influence of the writer Prosper Mérimée, France’s first inspector of ancient monuments, the city was restored in the 1850s and 1860s by the great Neo-Gothic architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Much of France’s medieval built heritage had either fallen into disrepair or had suffered depredations through countless wars and the French Revolution. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc – who also restored Notre-Dame de Paris and was then working on Saint-Sernin, Toulouse – performed the massive feat of bringing Carcassonne back to its medieval glory. Although he was criticised for giving the Carcassonne’s towers steep conical pinnacles that were uncharacteristic of a southern region, his restoration is nevertheless seen as a masterpiece, albeit with touches of Romantic fantasy.

We shall explore Carcassonne’s ramparts and visit its Château Comtal (Count’s citadel), the Basilica of St Nazaire and St Celse. There will be time at leisure for lunch and to allow you to further explore the city before return to Toulouse mid-afternoon. Our day concludes with an evening lecture at the hotel. (Overnight Toulouse) B

Day 3: Thursday 24 September, Toulouse – Moissac – Albi

• Musée des Augustins, Toulouse
• Cloister of Saint-Pierre, Moissac

The morning in Toulouse will be spent exploring the town centre and visiting the Musee des Augustins. The Museee des Augustins, once a grand old Augustinian priory used as a residence and studio by Viollet-le-Duc when he worked on the restoration of Saint-Sernin, now holds a comprehensive collection of Romanesque and Gothic sculpture from the city’s churches.

After some time at leisure for lunch in Toulouse, we depart for Albi via Moissac, visiting the church of Saint-Pierre (1100-1150), which was once a Cluniac abbey. Moissac boasts a fine trumeau (door jamb) graced by the ethereal elongated figures of St Paul and the Prophet Jeremiah. Although much of the original monastery has been destroyed, its cloister remains. It has an important corpus of sculpted panels and capitals including figures in relief whose monumentality suggests that the artist, who also worked in Saint-Sernin, Toulouse, was inspired by antique sculpture, which was to be found in abundance in Southern France. (Overnight Albi) B

Day 4: Friday 25 September, Albi

• Les Jardins du Palais de la Berbie
• Cathédrale Sainte-Cécile d’Albi
• Musée Toulouse-Lautrec
• Afternoon at leisure

We spend the full day in Albi, a city of red brick, standing on the river Tarn, whose bed provided the clay for these bricks. We visit the bishop’s palace – the Palais de la Berbie – which has a fine garden and houses the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, as well as Albi’s extraordinary, fortress-cathedral, Sainte Cécile. The Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, one of the finest museums devoted to a single artist in France, incorporates early paintings by the master and some of his most important images of Parisian life. There is also a collection of his posters and a section devoted to his lithography displaying many of his lithographic stones.

As late as the 12th century, the County of Toulouse was independent of the French crown. The Papacy, and later the French monarchs, mounted the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229) to destroy the so-called Cathar ‘heresy’ and assert its power on the local authorities and clergy. Ultimately the county was incorporated into the French realm, in 1271. In Albi, Bishop Bernard de Castanet started the construction the new Cathedral of Sainte-Cécile in 1282. The building, with huge, smooth defensive walls and curved tower buttresses was designed like a fortress to remind the Albigensians of the authority of the Church whose dogmas they had questioned.

The rest of the afternoon will be at leisure to explore this beautiful city for yourself. (Overnight Albi) B

Day 5: Saturday 26 September, Albi – Sainte-Eulalie de Cernon – La Cavalerie – La Couvertoirade – Millau Viaduct – Albi

• Templar and Hospitaller Circuit on the Larzac Plateau
• Sainte-Eulalie de Cernon: the headquarters of a local Templar commanderie
• Templar and Hospitaller villages of La Cavalerie and La Couvertoirade
• Millau Viaduct (time permitting)

The Knights Templar, originally dedicated to the succour of pilgrims in Jerusalem, became a powerful force in medieval Europe, amassing vast wealth that raised the jealousy of kings. The Templars attracted charitable donations, including vast tracts of land. Among their many activities was banking, and Philip IV (1268-1314), who was heavily indebted to them, had many arrested, tortured to produce false confessions, and burned at the stake as heretics. He also forced Pope Clement V to disband the Order in 1312.

We spend today exploring Templar territories in the Larzac region to the east of Albi, visiting Sainte-Eulalie de Cernon, their regional headquarters (commanderie), and the fortified village of La Couvertoirade. Sainte-Eulalie de Cernon occupies a deep valley between ridges of the Larzac. It is the best-preserved Templar commandery in France, having been established by the Order in 1158, and then taken over by the Hospitallers when the Order was disbanded in 1312. La Couvertoirade, in a wildly beautiful setting, deep in the Larzac, was a Templar stronghold until the fall of the Order, when it also was taken over by the Knights Hospitaller who built the village’s curtain wall between 1439 and 1450. This wall still stands, and within it are a church, a small château, and a number of lovely old houses.

We shall also have lunch at a small restaurant in La Cavalerie, another fortified Larzac Templar site, halfway between Sainte-Eulalie de Cernon and La Couvertoirade.

We return to Albi in the late afternoon and, time permitting, make a brief stop to view the Millau Viaduct, a cable-stayed road-bridge that spans the valley of the river Tarn. Designed by the French structural engineer Michel Virlogeux and British architect Norman Foster, it is one of the tallest bridges in the world. (Overnight Albi) BL

Day 6: Sunday 27 September, Albi – Cordes-sur-Ciel – Rodez – Conques

• Bastide of Cordes-sur-Ciel
• Musée Pierre Soulages, Rodez

Today we drive north to the secluded town of Conques through the region of the Aveyron Gorges. Bastides, a fortified village or town of regular plan created ex nihilo, played a vital role in the consolidation of royal power after the Albigensian Crusade. Originally conceived to resettle and shelter people who had been displaced by the Albigensian Crusade, they were also intended to encourage agricultural and related market development. The territorial struggles between the Plantagenet and French monarchies favoured the construction of bastides. The bastides were therefore the ‘frontier towns’ or ‘colonies’ of the time, which tamed the land. Although an ideal bastide has a grid plan centring on an arcaded market square, they in fact took many forms that depended upon topography, microclimate, and available building materials. The plan of Cordes, often described as the earliest bastide, does not conform to type. Its organic plan accommodated the urban fabric to the steep bluff upon which it was located.

We then head west to Rodez, today’s prefecture of the Aveyron department, where we visit the Musée Soulages. Pierre Soulages was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor born in Rodez. He was arguably the most famous French artist of the second half of the 20th century. His works are held by leading museums around the world, including the one we visit today. Soulages is known as “the painter of black”, owing to his interest in the colour as both a colour and a non-colour. He saw light as a work material; the striations of the black surface of his paintings enable him to reflect light, allowing the black to come out of darkness and into brightness, thus becoming a luminous colour. Soulages produced 104 stained-glass windows for the Romanesque Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy in Conques from 1987 to 1994, which we will see tomorrow.

We then drive north to Conques, one of France’s greatest treasures. Tonight, we stay in a delightful small hotel occupying a late medieval house next to Conques’ famous church. (Overnight Conques) BLD

Day 7: Monday 28 September, Conques – Montal – Saint-Jean-Lespinasse

• Benedictine Abbey of Sainte-Foy, Conques
• Abbey Museum and its Treasury, Conques
• Château de Montal

Conques owes its fame to the 11th century Benedictine Abbey of Sainte-Foy. Its tympanum depicting the Last Judgement is widely considered the most beautiful in France. The abbey was first founded in 866 in a lonely, thickly wooded region, and became an important station on the Via Podiensis, the route to Santiago de Compostela from Le Puy, because of the extraordinary popularity of the saint, martyred in 330 CE, whose relics were brought here in five centuries later. The adolescent girl Sainte Foy became so popular that monuments to her were founded throughout Britain, continental Europe and the Near East. Her strange reliquary, fashioned in the form of an enthroned monarch, is the only surviving example of a form popular in the 11th century. It is housed in Conques’ Abbey Museum, which holds one of Europe’s best-preserved collections of medieval pilgrim art.

We shall spend the morning visiting the abbey church and the museum of Conques, and wandering through the small town viewing its lovely small houses.

In the afternoon, we shall drive west. We visit the Château de Montal whose powerful towers and picturesque profile give it the aspect of a fortress. Built in 1523-4, it is, however, a Renaissance palace similar to the great châteaux of the Loire, and the rich decoration of its stately façades reflects a political stability unknown earlier. Within, the château has a magnificent central staircase and beautiful fittings, such as great ornamental fireplaces. After touring the château and its gardens, we walk to our hotel, the Hôtel des Trois Soleils de Montal is overlooking the Bave Valley outside the village of Saint-Jean-Lespinasse. The hotel is noted for its fine cuisine, and we shall dine here tonight.  (Overnight Saint-Jean-Lespinasse) BD

Day 8: Tuesday 29 September, Saint-Jean-Lespinasse – Autoire – Loubressac – Carennac – Rocamadour – Sarlat

• Village of Autoire
• Village of Loubressac
• Carennac Church & Cloister
• Clifftop village of Rocamadour and its sanctuary

Today we explore two villages close to St Céré and then turn west along the valley of the Dordogne. Our route takes us through the heart of an ancient agricultural region with numerous beautiful châteaux, villages, and Romanesque pilgrim churches. We start our journey, travelling through Autoire, located at the head of the Gorge d’Autoire, a chasm running south from the Dordogne to the nearby village of Loubressac where we break for a picnic lunch.

Near Loubressac, the Bave meets the Dordogne, whose south bank we follow to Carennac. Here we stop to view the medieval tympanum over the doorway of the church. Carved tympana, often with graphic depictions of the Last Judgement, were a feature of Romanesque churches, presenting the faithful entering the shrine with awesome visions of Christ or terrifying views of eternal punishments meted out to sinners. You will be able to compare Carennac’s Last Judgement with those you have seen at Moissac and Conques and will see how each has a very different style compared to its counterparts.

After lunch, we continue on to Sarlat-la-Canéda. On the way, we stop in the clifftop village of Rocamadour. Nestled in a gorge above a tributary of the river Dordogne, this village is known for its sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which for centuries has attracted pilgrims from many countries, among them kings, bishops, and nobles. Accessed via the Grand Escalier staircase, it includes the Chapelle Notre-Dame, with its Black Madonna statue, and the Romanesque-Gothic Basilica of St-Sauveur. If you pay attention, you will see, embedded in the rock, a sword identified by the monks with the famous Durandal, the sword of Roland, the legendary paladin and partially historical officer of Charlemagne in French epic literature. (Overnight Sarlat) BL

Day 9: Wednesday 30 September, Sarlat – Les Eyzies de Tayac – Rouffignac – Sarlat

• Musée National de la Préhistoire, Les Eyzies
• Prehistoric cave of Rouffignac

Adrian joins us today for the rest of the tour.

For over a century the Dordogne has been celebrated for its magnificent painted caves from the Upper Palaeolithic (40,000-10,000 BCE). At this time humans were sufficiently technologically advanced to survive the extreme cold of the Last Ice Age in this region, and to hunt the huge herds of animals that roamed it. For 25,000 years in this region of limestone plateaux and verdant valleys, humans decorated caves with engravings, sculptures and paintings, depicting all kinds of animals in extraordinary, vividly naturalistic detail. Around 10,000 BCE the climate ameliorated, and the magnificent cave decorations cease, possibly because the great herds of bison, deer and other animals that man had hunted – and depicted – moved further north to new pastures that had been freed from the retreating ice cover.

Our introduction to Prehistory is done at the Musée National de la Préhistoire at Les Eyzies-de-Tayac. It is situated in a restored château on a terrace overlooking a plain on which vast herds of reindeer and other beasts would have roamed in the Late Stone Age. The château, in fact, is located on the site of a prehistoric settlement chosen, no doubt, for the excellent view it provided those scanning the plain for game. The museum holds, among other exhibits, an amazing collection of artefacts such as beautifully sculpted reliefs of animals.

Day 12: Saturday 3 October, Sarlat – Vézac – Beynac-Cazenac – Montignac

• Market Day at Sarlat-la-Canéda
• Jardins de Marqueyssac, Vézac
• Barge excursion along the Dordogne River
• Village and Château of Beynac-Cazenac

Saturday is market day in Sarlat-la-Canéda, which rivals Conques in the beauty of its medieval streetscapes. Our leisurely morning stroll will include participation in the market where you will be able to purchase ingredients for your picnic lunch in the gardens of Marqueyssac.

The Dordogne south of Sarlat-la-Canéda is littered with exquisite châteaux, bastides and churches. Our drive to the Château de Marqueyssac allows us to immerse ourselves in this landscape. Marqueyssac has extraordinary ‘hanging gardens’, named because of their position on a craggy promontory with breathtaking views over the surrounding valley. The château was founded in the late 17th century and has remained in the family ever since. In the 18th and 19th centuries a vast number of box trees, which lend themselves so well to topiary, were planted.

We next drive to Beynac-Cazenac, a village which has managed to retain its medieval charm. The Château de Beynac, one of the great castles of the Périgord, dominates the north bank of the Dordogne River from a precipitous height and is defended on the north side by double walls. Crouching beneath its limestone cliff is a small village, once the home of poet Paul Eluard. During the Hundred Years’ War, the Dordogne River frequently marked the border between French and English territories: the fortress at Beynac, then in French hands was faced on the opposite bank of the river by the Château de Castelnaud, held by the English.

We shall enjoy a cruise along the Dordogne River on board replicas of traditional gabarres (the Dordogne’s traditional flat-bottomed boats), passing some of the valley’s most beautiful castles along the way, and a local guide will provide a commentary on various aspects relating to the river, its history and its environment.

We wander through the narrow paved streets of the village of Beynac-Cazenac and visit the castle before continuing to Montignac, where we shall reside for the next 3 nights. (Overnight Montignac) BD

Day 13: Sunday 4 October, Montignac – Lascaux – St-Léon-sur-Vézère – Thonac – Montignac

• Walking tour of Montignac
• Lascaux Caves II
• St-Léon-sur-Vézère
• Château de Losse, Thonac

Until recently a sleepy backwater, Montignac was transformed when the Lascaux caves were discovered. It is now a thriving small town with attractive medieval streets and houses.

This morning we visit the facsimile of the world-famous painted caves, Lascaux II, the original having long since been closed to the public. This is the most famous and spectacular of all decorated caves, best-known perhaps for its 600 paintings of aurochs, horses, deer and a variety of signs; there are also almost 1500 engravings in the cave. Although we cannot visit the original, it is important to see this facsimile in order to gauge the quality of this pinnacle of cave art.

We then drive along the Vézère Valley for a visit to the picturesque village of St-Léon-sur-Vézère. Here we may view a number of houses which still retain their traditional lauze (stone) roofing, and the Romanesque Church of Saint-Léonce which features some fine frescoes.

This afternoon we visit the Château de Losse. This castle owes its position, inhabited continuously since prehistory, to its strategic command of the valley. In the 13th century a Flemish family, the Losse, fortified the cliff above the river. Like so many French châteaux, it was transformed from a fortress to a country palace during the Renaissance. This was affected by Jean II de Losse who was one of François I’s pages and tutor to Henry IV. We shall visit the elegant Renaissance building and its large formal garden, all with magnificent views of the valley. (Overnight Montignac) BL

Day 14: Monday 5 October, Montignac – Marquay – Eyrignac – St-Amand-de-Coly – Montignac

• Abri de Cap Blanc, Marquay
• Les Jardins du Manoir d’Eyrignac
• Saint-Amand-de-Coly: Fortified Church

This morning we head to the small village of Marquay to explore the Abri de Cap Blanc, a rock shelter that presents a large prehistoric sculpted frieze. Considered to be one of the best examples of Palaeolithic sculpture, the frieze is 13 meters long and includes carvings of horses, bison and deer.

Then we drive through lovely, often dramatic, countryside to Eyrignac, where Patrick Sermadiras de Pouzels de Lile has restored a formal 18th-century garden, a rarity in Périgord. Here, box, hornbeam and yew are clipped with an almost obsessive exactness to produce verdant architectural forms aligned along three vistas. Strong perspectives of sharply formed leafy structures are orchestrated in subtle tonal contrasts – between the fresh green of lawns, the glossy leaves of the box, the slightly translucent foliage of the hornbeam and the matt, almost black needles of the yew.

We enjoy lunch at the gardens’ terrace restaurant before driving to the picturesque village of Saint-Amand-de-Coly, which has an interesting 12th-century fortified church. The small walled village of Saint-Amand-de-Coly grew up around an Augustinian monastery first mentioned in a document of 1048, whose houses like the monastery itself, were constructed of Sarladaise stone, with typical lauze roofs. Little remains of the monastery and the high defensive walls that protected it and the town. (Overnight Montignac) BLD

Day 15: Tuesday 6 October, Montignac – Périgueux – Pessac-sur-Dordogne – Bordeaux

• Walking tour of Vesunna, the Gallo-Roman town of Périgueux
• Pilgrim cathedral of Saint-Front, Périgueux
• Farewell Lunch and wine tasting at Château Carbonneau, Pessac-sur-Dordogne

Today we drive to Bordeaux via Périgueux, once an important medieval pilgrimage centres. We start with a walking tour of Vesunna, the antique town, founded around 16 BCE when the province of Gallia Aquitania was established by Augustus. Around 40 BCE, the town already had a forum and the amphitheatre was under construction. The temple, known today as the ‘Tour de Vésone’ soaring in the museum’s park, dates back to the beginning of the 2nd century.

The Cathedral of Saint-Front, although very heavily restored in the 19th century, nevertheless is particularly interesting for its medieval domes. The use of domes to roof churches in this region resembles that at St Mark’s, Venice. It is typical of the ecclesiastical architecture of the Byzantine Empire rather than Western Europe. Saint-Front is actually composed of two earlier churches, separated by a high medieval bell tower.

We sample wines and eat lunch at Château Carbonneau, located between Saint-Emilion and Bergerac. This winery is a corner of New Zealand in the Sainte-Foy appellation. They produce elegant red, rosé and white wines that reflect the exceptional terroir of the Sainte-Foy Côtes de Bordeaux Appelation. The 100-hectare plus estate is also a working farm. (Overnight Bordeaux) BL

Day 16: Wednesday 7 October, Bordeaux. Tour Ends.

• Tour concludes in the morning
• At leisure/Check out

Our tour ends in Bordeaux after breakfast. In the morning you will be required to check out of the hotel. Please contact ASA if you require assistance with a transfer to Bordeaux Airport. B