Top Reasons to Go

Fantastic food: Périgord truffles, foie gras, walnuts, plums, and myriad species of mushroom jostle for attention on restaurant menus here—and the goose-liver pâté is as good as it gets.

Rock stars: Lascaux is like the Louvre of Paleolithic art, and millions have witnessed prehistory writ large on its spectacularly painted cave walls.

Religious Rocamadour: Climb toward heaven up the towering cliff to Place St-Amadour's seven chapels and you might be transported to a better place.

Sarlat's Cité Médiévale: Feast your eyes on Sarlat's honey-color houses and 16th-century streets, and then just feast at the hundred or so wine and foie gras shops.

Versailles in the sky: A dizzying 400 feet above the Dordogne River, the Jardin de Marqueyssac is a glorious garden with a 3-km (2-mile) maze of topiaries, parterres, and hedges.