The Alzou valley floor and the causse paths

The Alzou is dry for much of the year, and its floor below Rocamadour is a flat green corridor of meadow and walnut with the cliff on one side and oak scrub climbing the other. A path runs along it from below the village, and within five minutes of leaving the main street you are alone: no shops, no coaches, just walls, water meadows and the occasional shepherd's hut.

It is the counterweight to everything above. From down here the village reads as a silhouette on the skyline rather than a monument, and the foreground gives you what a cliff cannot — grass to sit on, trees to shade a face, space to walk toward the camera. Morning light comes over the plateau and rakes along the valley; evening puts the cliff in shadow and lights the far bank.

Up on the causse behind L'Hospitalet the character changes again: bare limestone pavement, low drystone walls, dwarf oak and juniper, and huge open sky. The marked walking paths from the hamlet cross it in every direction. It is exposed and hot in July and August, and there is no shade to speak of, so keep those to early or late.

Sensible shoes for both, and remember that the fields either side of the path are working farmland — stay on the track, close any gate you open, and give livestock a wide berth.