Dordogne travel guide

Forget the car, the best way to explore the Dordogne’s magnificent forests, medieval villages and resplendent river meanders is by canoe, bike or on foot. Discover the best of its honey-coloured stone bastide (fortified) towns and caves full of prehistoric art, all fuelled by some of France’s best traditional local produce. Read more in our Dordogne travel guide.

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Dordogne travel guide

The Dordogne is bucolic France at its finest. A varied region known historically by the French as the Périgord, or specifically the Périgords Noir, Blanc, Vert and Pourpre (named after their famous dark forests, limestone, woodland and grapes respectively) – home to deep ancient forests, impossibly pretty honey-coloured stone villages, painted caves and its pièce de résistance – the Dordogne River.

If les francais’ famous laissez-faire attitude seems amplified here, you can’t blame them. Because who could hurry and worry through life surrounded by the Dordogne’s deep forests and down-to-earth charm.

Vacations here are all about lazy days canoeing in the shadow of chateaux perched atop dramatic limestone cliffs, stopping to wander ancient fortified towns and shop for local delicacies in a plethora of busy farmers’ markets. But if paddling doesn’t float your boat the Dordogne is equally lovely by bike or on foot. Or if that all just sounds too energetic head off-grid into the heart of the woodlands of the rural Périgord Vert, where you can stay in a cabin and explore away from it all, at your own pace.

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The Dordogne is…

…verdant, with vertiginous limestone cliffs and the best of France’s local produce.

The Dordogne isn’t…

…unexplored. Expect crowds and the need to book early, especially in summer.

Things to do in the Dordogne...

...Get paddling. One of the best ways to explore the Dordogne is via its river. And don’t worry – this is as leisurely as canoeing gets, floating downstream with the current between bucolic riverside towns, spotting chateaux and kingfishers en route. ...Go off grid. Hole up in a cabin in the woods, relax in a lakeside hammock and listen to the frog chorus. The Dordogne does away-from-it-all nature like nowhere else – with delicious local market fare just a bike ride away. ...Tuck into local produce. This is a region famed for its duck dishes – don’t miss the magret or confit de canard served up with thin slices of potato cooked in goose fat. Or the black truffles and walnuts of the Périgord Noir, the latter made into tasty walnut tarts and desserts.

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Things not to do in the Dordogne...

...Hire a car. You could spend a week whizzing about from sight to sight locked up in your car in-between or you could, instead, enjoy a leisurely bike ride or canoe trip to a clifftop chateau, rock-hewn village or convivial cafe. We know what we’d prefer. ...Ignore the underground. Some of the world’s oldest and best-preserved prehistoric paintings lie in the caverns littering the eastern Dordogne. Don’t miss the UNESCO-listed Vezère Valley or the Grottes de Lascaux – a complex of intricately decorated caves accessible from Montignac. ...Try the foie gras. Just because the tradition of foie gras production goes back generations, it doesn’t make it any less cruel. Caged ducks and geese are force-fed to enlarge their livers to 10 times their normal size – which is then sold whole, or made into terrines, patés and parfaits.

Diane Kirkwood, owner of our off-grid Dordogne vacation accommodation Covertcabin shares her love of the little-visited Périgord Vert: “Tucked away at the northernmost tip of Dordogne, we are far from the ‘famous’ sights such as the caves of Lascaux, the Dordogne river and the vineyards or Bergerac, but I like to think of our little area as a ‘Mini-Dordogne’! Our cabins are all at private locations within the Parc Naturel Régional Périgord-Limousin, this is the Périgord Vert of forests, lakes, rolling countryside, secret valleys but we do have our local caves, chateaux and beautiful, less famous, rivers where we can canoe.”