2 Best Sights in The Dordogne, France

The Basse Ville's Rue Piétonne, the main pedestrian street, is crammed with crêperies, tea salons, and hundreds of tourists, many of whom are heading heavenward by taking the Grand Escalier (staircase) or elevator (€3) from Place de la Carreta up to the Cité Religieuse, set halfway up the cliff. If you walk, pause at the landing 141 steps up to admire the fort. Once up, you can see tiny Place St-Amadour and its seven chapels: the basilica of St-Sauveur opposite the staircase; the St-Amadour crypt beneath the basilica; the chapel of Notre-Dame, with its statue of the Black Madonna, to the left; the chapels of John the Baptist, St-Blaise, and Ste-Anne to the right; and the Romanesque chapel of St-Michel built into an overhanging cliff. St-Michel's two 12th-century frescoes—depicting the Annunciation and the Visitation—have survived in superb condition.

Possibly founded by Charlemagne in the 8th century, Abbaye Bénédictine has none of its original buildings left, but its bell tower has been hanging on since the 11th century (the secret of its success is that it's attached to the cliff rather than the abbey, and thus it withstood waves of invaders). Fifth-century hermits carved out much of the abbey, and some rooms have astonishing 16th-century sculpted reliefs of the Last Judgment. Also here is a small museum devoted to the 19th-century painter Fernand-Desmoulin. At night the abbey is romantically floodlighted.