Belcastel

By the 1970s Belcastel was largely abandoned, the ninth-century castle a heap of rubble and the village houses collapsing. Fernand Pouillon, an architect known for large postwar housing schemes and for a spell in prison over a property scandal, bought the ruin in 1974 and spent about ten years rebuilding it with local materials and traditional methods, restoring the village around it as well; he is buried in the church below. The result is a stone village on both banks of the Aveyron linked by a fifteenth-century humpbacked bridge, with the castle above and a church holding a carved tomb.

What you actually see

• The rebuilt castle - a ruin reconstructed by hand over a decade.
• The humpbacked bridge - a fifteenth-century crossing of the Aveyron.
• The stone village - restored houses with lauze roofs on both banks.
• The church tomb - a carved medieval tomb below the castle.

When to go

April to October; the castle closes over winter and hosts exhibitions in season. The village is small and quiet, busier at weekends. Autumn colour along the river is good.

Honest expectations

Almost everything visible is reconstruction rather than survival, which matters to some visitors. The lanes are steep and cobbled. Parking is outside the village.

Nearby

Rodez lies east; Conques is north.