Blog : Tourism news from our region

If you'd like to combine a hike with a visit to an unusual place steeped in history, we recommend a walk not far from Miers, a village located between Rocamadour and the Gouffre de Padirac. It's from Miers that you'll find one of the starting points for a very special hike, the "Dolmens de Miers" trail, which has been given this name quite simply because the region has traces of human occupation dating back to the Palaeolithic period, with a large number of Neolithic tombs and dolmens, making the Lot one of the French departments with the most burial mounds.

Among the many walks available in the more or less immediate vicinity of the Moulin du Boisset, there is one that we are particularly fond of: the Moulin du Saut. You can tackle this hike by taking several routes, depending on your level and sporting ability. These range from a simple loop of around 5km starting from the car park near Gramat, to a round trip (14km) starting from the foot of the medieval town of Rocamadour, or a combination of the two for the bravest (around 18km).

Just 20 minutes' drive from the Moulin du Boisset is Saint-Sozy, a pretty village close to the Dordogne. This is the starting point for our new hike. On a loop of just over 8 km, you'll discover a multitude of varied landscapes representative of the Dordogne Valley.

Right from the start, you're surrounded by fields of corn and walnut trees, grown on the fertile banks of the Dordogne. The river flows peacefully nearby, but you can still hear the cries of joy from children bathing in its waters, a group of young people camp on the beach of a small island, a fisherman casts his rod, a canoe goes by, a swan splashes about, there's life.

Today, on an unseasonably warm and sunny February day, we decided to move a little further away from the Moulin. The Lot department is criss-crossed by 2 rivers, the Dordogne to the north, which we know well as it flows just 5 minutes from our house, and the Lot to the south, which we know much less about, flowing through the department's prefecture, Cahors. So we headed south to Bouziès, just over an hour's drive away, which would be the starting point for our walk. The road is winding, but passes through the superb Causse landscapes that characterise the karstic relief typical of our region, with exposed limestone rocks, groves of oak trees and low stone walls demarcating the plots.

We were passing through Saint-Céré, a pretty little town 25 minutes from the Moulin du Boisset, whose town centre, like many of the Lot's villages, is rich in heritage, and we decided to take a walk in a nearby forest. I can't remember how or where, but I'd learned that a special feature of the forest was that it was criss-crossed by a path strewn with works by local artists. So we headed for Latouille-Lantillac, 5 minutes from Saint-Céré, the starting point for this unusual 'exhibition'.