CAHORS , on the River Lot, was the capital of the old province of Quercy. In its time, it has been a Gallic settlement; a Roman town; a briefly held Moorish possession; a town under English rule; a bastion of Catholicism in the Wars of Religion, sacked in consequence by Henri IV; a university town for four hundred years; and birthplace of the politician Léon Gambetta (1838-82), after whom so many French streets and squares are named. Modern Cahors is a sunny southern backwater, with two interesting sights in its cathedral and the remarkable fourteenth-century Pont Valentré .

While you're in the Cahors area, don't miss out on the local wine , heady and black but dry to the taste and not at all plummy like the Gironde wines from Blaye and Bourg, which use the same Malbec grape.