The Most Beautiful Villages of France

France has many pretty villages throughout its regions and there are many of these scattered around the Périgord and Quercy.

Living Villages not theme parks

There are some however which have extra something however and deserve the appellation ‘beautiful’. For this reason in 1981 Charles Ceyrac, the then mayor of Collonges-la-Rouge, in the Dordogne, came up with an idea to promote this concept. 66 of his mayoral colleagues throughout France formed an association which eventually included 155 villages. Known as Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, the aim was not to create ‘theme parks’ but to attract tourists to ‘living’ villages thereby helping to conserve them.

If this sounds appealing you might like to plot a route between some of these villages that are within the region covered by this guide. These include Capdenac-le-Haut, Cardaillac, Carennac Castelnaud-la-Chapelle, Limeuil, St-Cirq-Lapopie and others featured below.