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The Briar Review(704) 362-5187
two rivers, one causse, and long drives between villages

two rivers, one causse, and long drives between villages

Book a week in the Quercy, the limestone plateau above the Lot and the Dordogne

You can book a week in the Quercy for the same seven nights people usually spend further east, on a plateau where the villages sit twenty to forty minutes apart by road.

Seven nights, from $2,210 per person.

What the word means on this page: you ask, and the desk puts the reservation through to whichever company actually runs the week. Your money never passes through The Briar Review Bookings LLC; there is no field on this site that asks for a card, and until you have read a written figure and said yes to that operating company’s own terms, nothing is held in your name.

Half the people who call about this part of France are describing somewhere else. They say walnut country, they say a river with cliffs, they say a village with a market on Saturday, and they say all of it in the same breath as Provence. Then they hear the drive between the two and go quiet. So it is worth being plain at the start: you can book a week in the Quercy and get limestone, water, caves and walnut orchards, and you will not get lavender fields, the Mediterranean light, or a restaurant every four miles.

The Quercy is the old province around Cahors and Figeac, a limestone plateau split by two rivers. The Lot runs through the southern half in tight loops with cliffs on the outside of each bend. The Dordogne comes across the north. Between them the ground is causse: thin soil over rock, dry stone walls, juniper, sheep, and stone huts built without mortar that people still argue about the age of. It holds water badly on the surface and beautifully underneath, which is why the caves are here.

What that means for a week is more driving and fewer people. Villages sit twenty to forty minutes apart on roads that follow the rock rather than the map. You will not sit in traffic. You will also not stumble on somewhere to eat at nine in the evening in October.

What the week is
One rented house or hotel base, a hire car for the whole week, and days built around two river valleys, the dry plateau between them, and two or three cave sites booked in advance.
What sets it apart
The Quercy sits about 300 miles northwest of the Luberon, roughly five and a half hours of driving between the two; our Quercy week starts at $2,210 per person against a Luberon week that runs about a third higher; the plateau is limestone causse at 900 to 1,300 feet with river gorges cut 400 feet below it, not a south-facing range above open farmland; the cave sites here take timed entry and the summer slots are gone by March, while the Quercy's own high season is short and August thins out fast once the walnut harvest approaches.
What the figure covers
Seven nights in one base, either a village house or a small hotel; hire car for seven days, category B, unlimited mileage; timed entry to two cave sites of your choosing, booked by us at the time we hold the week; a driving book for the week with parking notes for each village, because most of them have one lot and it is outside the walls; a written figure valid for thirty days.
What it leaves to you
Flights to and from France, and the transfer from your arrival airport to the base; fuel, tolls and any second driver on the hire car; all meals, including breakfast unless the base is a hotel that serves it; entry to anything beyond the two booked cave sites, including the smaller caves, the abbey and the market town museums; the deposit the hire company holds against the card at the desk; anything you add after the figure is written.
Who this one is wrong for
Anyone who does not want to drive. The week does not work without a car: there is no useful rail between the villages, taxi coverage on the causse is thin, and a typical day here is fifty to ninety minutes behind the wheel. It is also wrong for anyone who wants dinner within walking distance every night, since most bases have one restaurant in the village and it closes two days a week outside July and August, and wrong for anyone set on swimming weather, which on the rivers means late June through early September and nothing either side of that.

Rock that drains, and roads that follow it

The plateau runs between about 900 and 1,300 feet, and the rivers have cut down through it roughly 400 feet, so almost every arrival at a village involves a descent, a bridge and a climb. The gradients are ordinary. The corners are not; a twelve mile hop can take thirty five minutes and the satellite navigation will insist otherwise until you are on it.

Walking here divides cleanly into two kinds. On the causse it is flat to gently rolling, on white stone tracks with almost no shade and no water, which is why summer walkers on the plateau start at seven in the morning and stop by eleven. In the valleys it is short, steep and shaded: 300 to 500 feet of ascent from the river to a clifftop viewpoint, usually on steps or a stone path, usually taking under an hour each way.

The caves are the other reason people come and the reason to plan. The painted and engraved sites in the region take timed entry with a fixed number of people a day, and the count is set by conservation rather than demand. Summer slots typically go in February and March. We book two of them when we hold your week, which is why we ask which ones early rather than late.

two rivers, one causse, and long drives between villages
two rivers, one causse, and long drives between villages

People who arrive here having asked for Provence

Nobody is wrong to confuse the two. They share stone villages, markets, walnuts in the cooking and heat in August. The differences are mostly ones of distance and density, so here they are as facts rather than as an argument.

Wanted lavender fields in bloomThat is the Valensole plateau and the Sault country, in the Luberon page's part of France, and it is a July fact there, not a Quercy fact at all
Wanted a village where dinner is a two minute walkThat points at the denser Luberon villages, where four or five kitchens sit inside the same walls; here most bases have one, and it shuts two days a week outside high summer
Wanted painted caves and a river with cliffsThat points here: the Lot and the Dordogne, and the timed-entry cave sites, none of which exist in the Luberon
Wanted heat you can count on in SeptemberBoth hold their warmth, but the Quercy is inland and 300 miles further from the Mediterranean, so September evenings on the causse drop into the fifties while afternoons still reach the mid seventies

The year on the causse, month by month

The plateau exaggerates the seasons. Stone holds heat, thin soil gives it up fast, and the rivers set their own timetable for swimming and for the boats. The short answer is that April to June and September are the wide part of the year, July and August are hot and busy on the water, and the middle of winter closes a good deal of what you would have come for.

April to mid May
Green, 60s in the afternoon, waterfalls and springs running; some restaurants still on winter days
Late May to June
Markets in full swing, high 70s, cave slots still findable, river cold but swimmable by late June
July and August
Upper 80s to mid 90s on the causse, valleys busier, cave tickets long gone unless held in winter, walnut orchards in full leaf
September
Mid 70s by day, low 50s at night, harvest starting, water still warm enough into the first week or two
October
Walnut harvest proper, color in the valleys, half the smaller sites on reduced days from mid month
November to March
Cold, wet on the plateau, many caves and most river operators shut; villages quiet in a way some people want and most do not

From your message to a written figure

1. You write
You tell us the week, the number of people, and which two cave sites you want. If you do not know the sites yet, say so and we will send the list with what each one actually is
2. We check
We put the dates against a base and against cave availability at the same time, because those two things fail independently and there is no point holding one without the other
3. You get a figure
A written figure, itemized, with the base named, the car category stated, and the two cave slots identified by date and time. Two to four working days
4. You decide
The figure stands for thirty days. Nothing is held against your name until you say yes in writing, and no card details are taken on this site

Ask us something specific

The most useful message names a week and a number of people, and says whether anyone in the group would rather not drive the valley roads. That last one changes which base we suggest more than anything else you can tell us. The Briar Review books the house, the car and the cave slots; other companies own them, drive them and guide them.

Reserve a vacation package, or ask about both halves of a pair

This form takes requests 24/7 and there is no point in the week when it stops. Whatever arrives here is read by a human being before the end of that same working day. Pricing your dates needs two to four working days on top of that, since two separate companies have to reply before the figure can be written down.

Nowhere on this page, or any other page here, is there somewhere to type a card. Pressing send does not put your name against a bed: it begins the asking. What makes a reservation real is you reading a written figure, seeing which company issued it, and agreeing to that company’s terms. Look at the cancellation terms first.