David said he’d always wanted to go to Cahors, so Cahors it was. It was lunchtime when we arrived and the weather was hot, hot, hot. The streets by the car park were teeming with students from the nearby Lycee, lounging around on street corners smoking Gitanes or revving their mopeds and trying to look cool .  Clearly the new school term had started.

Cahors is the capital of the Lot department, surrounded on three sides by the River Lot. We walked along the course of the River, which was teaming with fish, until we came to the Medieval Quarter and then threaded our way through the cool, narrow streets. Unlike some towns we have visited in France, Cahors felt very much a living city. Builders were restoring several of the houses and the cafes were buzzing with locals. We passed a row of quirky shops selling artisan food, handmade clothes, and jazz records.

The river was spanned by a number of bridges but we were most keen to see the Valentre Bridge, which is the main tourist attraction of the town and is on the UNESCO World Heritage list _ unlike Sarlat-la-Caneda, which I blogged about recently – they’d like to be on the list but haven’t yet made it.) The bridge dates back to the 14^th century, and took over 70 years to complete. I read that it was built to withstand British invasion. Well, these two Brits thought it very impressive, and it had the added bonus of being traffic free.