Domaine Les Gonies

A splendid way to spend a day is to bring bikes along and head towards the Lot river for hours bimbling about in the area’s many vineyards and wineries. If you need a little break from all the sipping, carry on to Puy l’Evêque (50 minutes by bike or 15 by car) to board a boat trip on a traditional wooden gabare, or paddle along on a canoe trip. Lots of those wineries are of course set in gorgeous surrounds, but for setups that are even more spectacular you’ll need a proper château or few: Château de Bonaguil, Château de Fumel and Château de Gavaudun are all within a 20-minute drive and all rather swoonworthy. Don’t let its inclusion as a ‘wicked place’ in Dante’s Inferno put you off a day trip to Cahors 45 minutes away: in real life it’s a most agreeable place to wander around, with a mix of medieval and 19th-century buildings to see, gorgeous gardens to stroll through and parts of the original fortified walls still in place. The UNESCO-listed 14th-century Pont Valentre is the star of the show (although the Cahors wine is rather decent too).