The Dordogne and the Lot: Caves, Castles and Cliff Villages

Stand under the five domes, then go outside and look up at the one part of the cathedral Abadie did not rebuild — the 12th-century tower over Saint Front's tomb, topped with a ring of little columns under a scaled conical spire that makes it look like a lighthouse

Walk the troglodyte caves behind Brantôme abbey, the actual remains of the 8th-century monastery cut into the cliff, and find the late-15th-century Last Judgement carved in the rock with the Triumph of Death beside it, the dovecote boulins above them, the miraculous spring of saint Sicaire, and the tanks where the monks reared salmon fry

Tour the Grotte de Villars, 13 km of galleries found in 1953, and get the guide to put the lamp on two things: the little blue horse, drawn in manganese oxide, and the panel where a man and a bison run together — the same subject as the Shaft at Lascaux, and the reason this cave is dated to the early Magdalenian

Walk the full-size copy of Lascaux at Montignac and stand in the reproduced Salle des Taureaux, 17 m long and 7 m high — then work out why you are not in the real one: a million people went through the cave between 1948 and 1963, algae and a calcite veil took hold, Malraux shut it in April 1963, and human presence in the original is now capped at 200 hours a year

Ride the glass lift up the bell tower of Sainte-Marie and, from the top, trace the edge of the protected sector created here in 1964 — the first anywhere in France under the Malraux law, with 65 protected buildings inside it — then pick out the lauze stone roofs that the law is the reason you are still looking at

Paddle the Dordogne downstream from La Roque-Gageac to Beynac, passing under the cliff village, then the boxwood terraces of Marqueyssac on the right bank, and finally between the two rival castles — Castelnaud on your left and Beynac on the cliff above your right

Stand at the Belvédère de la Barre, a hundred metres and more straight above the water, and follow the great loop the Dordogne throws below you — the cingle de Montfort — until you can point out where the river comes in and where it leaves

Climb the 216 steps of the Grand Escalier, which pilgrims went up on their knees and some still do, and on the sanctuary esplanade at the top count the seven churches and chapels round it, from the basilica of Saint-Sauveur and the crypt of Saint-Amadour to the chapels of Sainte-Anne, Saint-Blaise, Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Saint-Louis and Saint-Michel

On the south door of the abbey church of Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, read the tympanum from the top down: Christ with his arms flung wide at the Second Coming, the offset cross behind him, the apostles talking among themselves and the angels carrying the emblems of the Passion — then the lintel, where four monsters with dogs' and birds' heads swallow the damned above a band of beasts that may be the fallen kingdoms of Daniel or the seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse

Walk up through Saint-Cirq-Lapopie to the ruins of the three castles and the church of Saint-Cirq-et-Sainte-Juliette on the rock, find the old Auberge des Mariniers that André Breton bought in 1950 and called 'une rose impossible dans la nuit', then go out to the Bancourel belvedere below its 16th-century round dovecote for the view back at the Lapopie rock

Paddle a stretch of the Célé below Marcilhac between the ochre and white limestone cliffs that close in on the village, and pick out the cave mouths in the rock face from the water