Lot-et-Garonne

Lot-et-Garonne is in Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The department is full of small picturesque villages such as a fortified mill in Barbaste or a miraculous spring in Ambrus.

Cities

• 1 Agen — a 12th-century cathedral with a double nave, and art gallery, a canal.
• 2 Duras — the Château de Duras dates from the 17th century.
• 3 Marmande — the church of Notre-Dame, which dates from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries.
• 4 Monflanquin — ranked among the most beautiful villages in France.
• 5 Nérac — home to the Roman ruins of Nérac.
• 6 Villeneuve-sur-Lot — the largest of the bastides in the south-west.

Understand

Its landscape is a vast limestone plateau eroded by rivers, with two very wide valleys: that of the Lot and that of the Garonne. The rest of the landscape is quite hilly but with some limestone vestiges beyond which are witnesses of erosion.

See

In the north of the department you will find Bonaguil, the very well-preserved remains of one of the last strongholds built before the generalization of the Renaissance style. Its architecture was apparently designed to resist cannon fire, but it was never attacked, which probably explains its relatively well-preserved condition.

The listed village of Clermont-dessous has a fortified 11th century church, and a crêperie located in an old building. Not far from there, a bastide named Vianne which has preserved a good part of its ramparts and entrance gates, as well as a church surrounded by "open-air tombs" along the walls.

Astaffort, at the southern limit of the department and the Gers, is fairly representative of the villages of Lot et Garonne, witnesses of the agricultural wealth of this department from the 10th century to the 20th century.

In Agen, you can also admire the canal bridge, a rather remarkable construction allowing the Canal du Midi (the one that connects the Mediterranean to the Atlantic) to cross the Garonne.

Outside the towns, there are many buildings, towns and castles classified as historical monuments to discover, including:

• Bonaguil Castle
• Duras Castle
• Nérac Castle