The Hospitalet belvedere across the Alzou canyon

Rocamadour cannot be photographed from inside Rocamadour. The picture is taken from L'Hospitalet, the hamlet on the far lip of the Alzou canyon, where a railed belvedere beside the road looks straight across at the village: the single street of medieval houses at the bottom, the cluster of chapels and the Grand Escalier above it, the castle on the skyline, and the canyon dropping into trees below. It is a five-minute walk from the car park at L'Hospitalet, and there is no climb involved.

Go at sunrise. The cliff faces roughly west, so the first light lands on the plateau behind you and the village sits in cool blue shade — often with mist filling the canyon, which separates the layers beautifully. Through the afternoon the sun swings round and the limestone warms; the last hour before sunset is the golden version of the same frame. Midday flattens it.

Bring a longer lens as well as a wide one. At 24mm you get canyon, village and sky and the buildings go small; at 70–135mm the three layers stack and compress into the picture people recognise. A couple stands at the railing with the village behind — that is the whole composition, and it works at any focal length as long as you expose for the stone, not the sky.

There is a second, quieter viewpoint a few hundred metres along the road toward the château, and the belvedere itself gets busy in the middle of the day in season. At dawn there is nobody there at all.