Major Tourist Sites

Due to its strategic position, Le Camping de la Vézénie is ideally placed in a circle which will allow you to discover each site more beautiful than the next within a day’s excursion.

The Padirac Abyss

The Gouffre de Padirac is a monumental natural cave located « a bird’s-eye view « 11 km (17km by car) from Rocamadour. It is, among the caves and chasms, the most emblematic and the first underground site in France. The opening is 35 metres in diameter and the chasm plunges 75 metres from the surface of the causse. At the bottom, 103 metres underground, flows the river Padirac which flows through a network of galleries of more than 40km!

A little more than 1 km of galleries is open to the public. The route starts on a boat maneuvered by a boatman. The visit allows you to discover successively the Grande Pendeloque, a stalactite more than 60 meters long, suspended above the Lac de la Pluie, the Lac des Gours (a succession of natural dams) and the Salle du Grand Dôme, 94 meters height under the ceiling !!

Lascaux Cave

Located below the hill of Lascaux, the Centre International de l’Art Pariétal in Montignac combines a facsimile of the entire cave with numerous scenographic devices. It offers an immersive, sensory and virtual experience.

The tour starts from the discovery path to the cave and ends in a last room dedicated to temporary exhibitions of contemporary artists.

During the visit, at the exit of the facsimile, different scenographic devices in the Lascaux workshop and following the theatre of cave art, offer you an experience based on image and virtual technologies to encourage the appropriation of cave art, the civilization of Cro-Magnon man and the history of the work of prehistorians.

From the 3D trip to the heart of Lascaux and other similar sites, through the gallery of the imaginary, the International Centre for Parietal Art is betting on putting the most advanced virtual reality technologies at the service of prehistoric art.

Rocamadour

Rocamadour is located in the Dordogne Valley: The sacred city is clinging to the cliff in an overlay of houses and chapels. From the castle that crowns this audacious construction, you can see a 150-metre high cliff at the bottom of which the stream of the Alzou meanders. On the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela, the basilica of Saint-Sauveur and the crypt of Saint-Amadour, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are open to visitors once they have climbed the 216 steps of the pilgrims’ staircase. The miraculous chapel, one of the 7 other chapels built in the hollow shapes of the rock, shelters its jewel, the Black Madonna, venerated for over a thousand years.

All around Rocamadour is the Regional Natural Park of the Causses du Quercy, an exceptional natural environment where rocky limestone plateau and green valleys, gorges, emerald green springs and resurgences, woods of small oaks and dolmens, old mills and small bridges are combined. A few steps away, the Dordogne Valley.

Rocamadour, a village undoubtedly blessed by the gods.

Sarlat

Situated in the east of the New-Aquitaine region, between the Dordogne valley and the Vézère valley, Sarlat is the city that cannot be ignored in the Périgord Noir. With its world-renowned heritage and gastronomic events, you have plenty to do for a weekend or a longer stay!

As you stroll through the narrow cobbled streets of the medieval town, remember to look up to observe the architectural wealth of the monuments. With its history that goes back to the Middle Ages, the town of Sarlat has an exceptional heritage to photograph but also a thousand gourmet pleasures! Between the shops of producers and regional products, the markets of Sarlat are a must to taste the specialities of the gastronomy of the Périgord!

Saint Cirq Lapopie

Perched above the river Lot, the medieval village adjusts to its cliff in a spectacular way “An impossible rose in the night”. Under the pen of André Breton, St-Cirq-Lapopie remains this eternal jewel on which time seems to glide without imprinting its mark. Straight out of the Middle Ages, this village, which is partly classified as a historical monument, can be discovered on foot, as if to let oneself be better imbued by the nobility of its architecture, the elegance of its arcades, its staircases, its fortified gates…

Formerly witness to a flourishing boating life, renowned for its wood turners, Saint-Cirq-Lapopie is a listed site with 13 historical monuments. The village has preserved all its heritage, but above all a crazy charm. Echoppes, restaurants and cafés shelter from the sun in the shadow of the ogival doors. While the site strikes by its overall harmony, which has earned it the title of “France’s favourite village” in 2012!