Free day in Sarlat

Are you going to be in Sarlat on a Wednesday or a Saturday? If so, you might want to spend some time wandering the street market that takes place in Sarlat on those days. Food, clothes, umbrellas, hats, soap, you name it, they've got it. Plus the regular shops are open and there are street performers as well. Well worth it in my opinion.

you are on the right track! I wish someone had told us before this trip to make plans for the day. On our trip the free day was the market day. It is a fantastic market, but it isn't going to take the full day. We were advised to buy things for a picnic the following day on a barge cruise on a canal.

You can call the RS office to ask about their current itinerary past what the website says. On our tour we had 2 hours free around lunchtime after the cave tour in the morning, then went on the canoes. They may have changed it since.

On the free day you can rent a car if you feel comfortable driving (it isn't hard). Or the easier thing would be to do what you suggest, hiring a guide. Look at the RS book and perhaps one or two others to get an idea of what is in the Dordogne region that you could easily visit.

edit: you might also want to make plans for the afternoon of the 1st full day of the tour. We had a tour of the Cathedral in the morning and the rest of the day free. It was a Sunday or Monday and all the shops in Chartres were closed. It wouldn't be too hard to get to a larger town by train (assuming it isn't a strike day) and its worth looking up the train schedules in advance and making some plans.

If it's market day, you will probably have enough to do in Sarlat. If not, rent a car and either (a) drive downriver to Castelnaud and Beynac to see the castles, or (b) drive to Montignac to visit Lascaux II, plus Les Eyzies for the prehistory museum if you want. No need to hire a guide unless you want a really high quality and high cost experience without driving yourself.

Car rental will be standard transmission only from Sarlat, FYI, if that matters.

I went on that tour with my daughter a couple of years ago. We did not have much extra time on the canoe day, or any day that wasn't identified as open other than an hour or two to walk the village or have a meal. We spent our market day in Sarlat, we both enjoyed not driving anywhere! The particular hotel we stayed in had a nice social room and the tour group spent the evening there together with wine and food from town.

The canoe trip down the Dordogne is great fun, though weather in fall may be cool. It is a pretty calm trip so you won't get wet in rapids; we found we had to paddle more than we planned to get back to the canoe rental location before they closed and we only had a few short stops along the riverbanks for snacks and water. Definitely didn't have time to visit the towns we passed on the way and not sure I would have wanted to wander them wearing wet swimwear.

I would also suggest the caves at Les Eyzies, we enjoyed both of them. We will be back there in September and have planned enough time to visit Les Eyzies, Rocamadour, take a canoe trip, and get to the market. You could also rent a bike to ride along the river

We just returned from the Loire Valley/South of France tour. It was nice to have a free day in the middle of the tour with nothing planned. We poked around town (it was market day), went to the tour happy hour and out to dinner with a couple of tourmates.