The Pont Valentre at Cahors

Cahors sits inside a tight loop of the Lot, and the Pont Valentre crosses the river at the western neck of it. Work began in 1308 and dragged on for decades, producing six pointed arches and three square towers standing directly on the deck, the middle one built to be closed off. It is the most complete fortified bridge left in France and it still carries pedestrians across. A nineteenth-century restorer added a small carved devil clinging to the central tower, a joke about the local story that the builder struck a bargain to get the thing finished. The bridge is one of the buildings listed under the Santiago pilgrimage routes across France.

What you actually see

• The three towers - square, tall, standing on the bridge deck itself.
• The carved devil - added in 1879 near the top of the central tower.
• The river path - the best angle on the arches comes from the bank, not the bridge.
• Cahors old town - a domed cathedral and Malbec cellars inside the river loop.

When to go

Morning light comes from the east and lands on the upstream face; late afternoon suits the downstream side, which is the view most people photograph from the bank. High summer in the Lot valley is hot and the riverside walk offers little shade until evening. The bridge is never closed and never ticketed, so it works at any hour or season.

Honest expectations

It is one bridge, and thirty minutes covers it unless you walk the river path or climb to the hillside viewpoint above. The nearest bank is a car park rather than a park. Cahors itself is a modest working town with a quiet centre and limited evening life, and most people pass through it rather than stay.

Nearby

The Cahors vineyards along the Lot, the cliff village of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie upstream and the underground river at Padirac to the north.