A house in the Périgord, below the cliffs

The region divides into four, and the names are still used to find one's way. The Périgord noir, around Sarlat, owes its colour to the holm oaks covering its limestone plateaux; the Périgord blanc, around Périgueux, to the pale stone of its hills; the green, to the north, to broadleaf forest heralding the Limousin; the purple, to the south-west, to the vines of Bergerac. The division is not a tourist invention: it describes landscapes that genuinely change from one end to the other.

The valley, and its two banks. The Dordogne cut its bed between limestone cliffs, and the castles settled facing one another at the points where the crossing was controlled: Beynac and Castelnaud have watched each other for six centuries from opposite banks. That is where most visits concentrate, and also where August traffic is worst. Staying a few kilometres above the valley costs less, gives the view, and spares you the morning queues.

The rock shelters. What is unique here is not the castles but the stone: whole villages — La Roque-Gageac, Saint-Léon, Les Eyzies — were built under a limestone overhang, using it as wall and roof. The same relief sheltered the prehistoric occupations whose traces fill the Vézère valley, Lascaux above all. Caves must be booked, sometimes weeks ahead in summer, and tickets are not sold at the door.

What there is to eat. The market is the local institution, and it moves town by day: Sarlat on Wednesday and Saturday, Périgueux likewise, Issigeac on Sunday. In winter the truffle markets are added, from December to February. The rest of the year it is walnuts, ceps in autumn, and the vineyards of Bergerac and Monbazillac to the south-west.

When to come. May, June and September give a green valley and sites you reach without queuing. July and August fill Sarlat and the castles; the river, on the other hand, stays passable by canoe all summer, preferably in the morning. Winter is damp and quiet, and it is the truffle season — for which the stone houses have fireplaces that earn their keep.

The river, which you go down. The Dordogne is navigable by canoe along much of its course here, and it is the best way to see the castles: from the water they take back the position they held when the point was to control a ford. Hire bases rent by the half-day or the day and run a shuttle back; the current does most of the work, and the classic run between Carsac and Beynac needs no particular experience. Go early: by the afternoon the river is as busy as the road.

Our Périgord addresses are rented direct from their owners, who know which day the nearest market is held and when the valley clears.