Route suggestions - Uzes to Carcassonne to Sarlat

This question comes up a lot on this board. The answer has more to do with your overall itinerary than what you've provided. Lots of times, people are proposing 5 nights in Provence, 1 night in Carcassonne, then two nights in the Dordogne. If that's the case, I advocate driving non-stop from Provence to the Dordogne and adding a day/night to the Dordogne.

The canal du midi rest stop is amazing. Honestly, the food is great and it is well situated at that middle of the drive.

I think Carcassonne is great, but the Dordogne is my favorite part of France.

Matt

Just drove Saint Remy to Dordogne via Carcasonne. Hadn't planned on stopping there due to what I'd ready about it being Disneyfied and I'm anti-crowds. But, when I saw it from the autoroute on a rainy day at lunch time, we decided to swing through. Because of the rain there was no one there and it was enjoyable. Ninety minutes was plenty though.

Check out Saint Cirque La Popie for an afternoon stop. It makes the prettiest villages of France list I hear. We'd planned on making that a lunch stop but it ultimately didn't work due to timing and the Carcasonne stop.

Albi is a very good stop to see the Gothic Cathedral with unusual brick exterior and rare, interior paint preservation, and the Toulouse-Lautrec museum. Closer to Carcassonne, Rick Steves France also describes the wine region around Minerve and Caunes-Minervois.

We are just back from a 3-week road trip through just the Southwest of France. (We're fairly peripatetic and stayed in 12 separate towns.)

I thought Carcassone was well worth missing. From Uzes, I would probably stay off the freeway (OMG, the tollways are soooo boring!) and drive cross country to stay overnight in Albi instead.

Sarlat is a cool town in the middle of a lot of stuff, but many of those things are a 30-minute or more drive away. So, you'll want to allow yourself as many nights there as possible. After a night in Albi, we stayed 1 in Cahors and 1 in Rocamadour (lots of sights around both), plus then 4 nights in Sarlat.

We did spend 1 night in Carcassone, where we stayed outside the main gate at Hotel Montmorency. I'd really recommend that. There are 2 hotels in one, one more reasonably priced. It's easy to park there, it's really right outside the gate, not in town. You'll still have that feel of staying within the walls but not have that stressful parking situation. Also, they have a pool (it's hot there) and an outside lawn and couches where you can relax with an adult beverage while looking up at the wall.

I admire you for being so organized and starting your planning early.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. How would you divide eight days between Provence and the Dordogne area? We are interested in Roman ruins, pretty villages, ruined castles and abbeys, scenery, and prehistoric caves. While we enjoy drinking good red wine, we are not interested in visiting vineyards.

Annie, we are planning so far ahead because we have enough miles for free flights. Since we will need to snag those free tickets in October, we need to finalize the itinerary before that. LOL.

Probably evenly.

Day 1: Carriers Lumineers, Les baux, pm in Arles
Day 2: Luberon towns
Day 3: Pont du Gard, uzes and if possible Nimes
Day 4: Cote du Rhone, Orange
Day 5: Drive to Dordogne, see Goufre du Padirac and Rocmondour en route
Day 6: Castlenau the morning, canoeing after lunch
Day 7: font du gamme and Lascaux and rouffignac caves
Day 8: visit towns (Beynac, Sarlat, Domme), visit Beynac castle. Goose farm tour in the pm.