Castles of the Dordogne valley near Beynac

The short version: from the spur terrace at Beynac you can see four other castles, and the valley around it holds more. Castelnaud faces it across the river with the medieval warfare museum; Marqueyssac is the hanging garden of clipped box above the water; Domme and La Roque-Gageac are villages built into cliffs; Sarlat is the medieval town everything here is measured from. Gabarres run the river from April to October.

From Beynac’s terraceFive castles in view

CastelnaudMedieval warfare museum

Marqueyssac150,000 box plants

Gabarres1 April – 31 October

Plus Beaux VillagesBeynac and La Roque-Gageac

Base townSarlat-la-Canéda

Arriving without a car?Every car park in the village is paid, all year, and the top one fills first in summer. A half-day tour from Sarlat drops you in the village and takes you on to Domme and the river; every option cancels free up to 24 hours before.

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Castelnaud-la-Chapelle

Directly across the Dordogne and slightly upstream, Castelnaud is the other half of the pair. It fell into ruin by the Revolution and was restored, and it now holds the Musée de la guerre au Moyen Âge: full-scale siege engines, trebuchets and mangonels standing in the open, historic arms and armour, and a son-et-lumière model of the siege of 1442. It is the hands-on castle of the two and the one children ask to go back to. The two compared, in full.

Marqueyssac

Marqueyssac is a garden rather than a fortress: more than 150,000 box plants clipped by hand, five kilometres of paths along a ridge above the river, and a late-seventeenth-century château at the head of it. The box parterres were laid out in the 1860s by Julien de Cerval, and the estate was reopened to visitors by the Kléber Rossillon group in 1996. It is one of the five castles visible from Beynac’s terrace, and Beynac is visible from its paths.

The Dordogne river below the cliff of Beynac — The Dordogne below the cliff: gabarres from La Roque-Gageac work this stretch from April to October.

Domme and La Roque-Gageac

Domme is a bastide on a height above the valley, with a hundred minutes of it built into the half-day tour from Sarlat. La Roque-Gageac is pressed between cliff and water, about eight kilometres from Sarlat, and is a Plus Beau Village de France as Beynac is. It is also where the gabarres leave from: flat-bottomed river boats, running 1 April to 31 October, roughly hourly between 09:30 and 18:00, on fifty-minute circuits and a longer one of an hour and a half, worked by two operators. From the water you see Beynac, Castelnaud and Marqueyssac in one trip.

Sarlat, and the rest of the Périgord Noir

Sarlat-la-Canéda is the base: the medieval town, the station, the departure point for both guided tours in this catalogue. Beyond it are Les Eyzies and Lascaux for prehistory. Périgord Noir is a real traditional region, the south-east of the Dordogne département centred on Sarlat, and it takes its name from the dark evergreen oak woods and the dark soil of the Sarladais, not from truffles. The golden triangle of the Dordogne, on the other hand, appears only on accommodation and camping sites: there is no consistent definition of it and no tourist-board map that draws one. How the geography fits together.

Seeing several in a day

The half-day tour from Sarlat takes Beynac, La Roque-Gageac with a gabarre and Domme in four hours. The private tour adds a viewpoint, a traditional village and a guided hour inside Beynac itself. On the water, the fifteen-kilometre canoe route passes La Roque-Gageac, the Pendoilles cliffs and the châteaux of La Malartrie, Castelnaud and Fayrac in about two and a half hours. All five listings, side by side.

Half day

Three villages and the river in one afternoon

Beynac on foot, a gabarre at La Roque-Gageac and a hundred minutes in Domme, four hours from Place Pasteur in Sarlat. From around a hundred and ten euros, free cancellation up to 24 hours before.

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Free cancellation up to 24 hours before departure on most tours — book now, decide later.

Frequently asked questions

Which castles can you see from Beynac?

Five at once from the spur terrace: Beynac itself, Marqueyssac, Fayrac, Lacoste and Castelnaud. The canoe routes add La Malartrie from the water. The terrace and the rooms before it.

What are the prettiest villages in the Dordogne?

Beynac-et-Cazenac and La Roque-Gageac are both listed among Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, and Domme is the bastide on the height above them. All three are on the half-day tour from Sarlat.

What is the golden triangle in the Dordogne?

A phrase used by accommodation and camping sites, with no consistent definition and no tourist-board map behind it. The real regional name is the Périgord Noir, centred on Sarlat.

Where do the Dordogne river boats leave from?

The gabarres leave from La Roque-Gageac, from 1 April to 31 October, roughly hourly between 09:30 and 18:00. Or paddle the same water yourself.