The Périgord's honey-stone market town — foie gras, medieval streets, and the finest Saturday market in France
Sarlat-la-Canéda is a medieval town of 9,000 inhabitants in the Dordogne whose historic centre is the best-preserved medieval townscape in France — a labyrinth of honey-coloured limestone streets, Gothic and Renaissance façades, and Romanesque ruins protected under the Malraux Law since 1962. The Saturday market is legendary: foie gras, Périgord truffles, confit duck, walnut oil, and dried ceps fill every stall. It sits at the heart of the Dordogne's Vézère valley, within day-trip reach of prehistoric cave art at Font-de-Gaume and Lascaux.
Sarlat grew around a Benedictine abbey founded in the 9th century, whose abbot held feudal authority over the town. The Hundred Years' War left Sarlat contested and economically devastated; a 1356 plague killed much of the population. A 1525 royal decree physically divided the town along the rue de la Liberté — a compromise between rival merchant factions — creating 'la Traverse', still legible in the town plan today. The Malraux Law designation in 1962 arrested all further change and the medieval streetscape was methodically restored through the 1970s.