Driving west from Bergerac along the River Dordogne, the first place you come to of any size is the bastide town of STE-FOY-LA-GRANDE, whose narrow central streets still retain a number of ancient houses. One of these, at 102 rue de la République, now houses the exceptionally helpful tourist office (mid-June to mid-Sept Mon–Fri 9.30am–12.30pm & 3–6pm, Sat 9.30am–12.30pm & 2.30–5.30pm; mid-Sept to mid-June Mon–Sat 9.30am–12.30pm & 2.30–5.30pm; tel 05.57.46.03.00), which has lists of chambres d'hôte and local wine-tasting sessions. Another draw is the town's mouthwatering Saturday market, and there's a very pleasant place to stay, the Grand Hôtel, 117 rue de la République (tel 05.57.46.00.08, www.grandhotel-mce.com; €40–55; restaurant from €14), just east of the tourist office.Thirteen kilometres west from Ste-Foy lies MONTCARET, whose main attraction is a fourth-century Gallo-Roman villa (daily: April–June & Sept 9.30am–12.30pm & 2–6pm; July & Aug 9.30am–1pm & 2–6.30pm; Oct–March 10am–12.30pm & 2–4.30pm; €4) with superb mosaics and baths plus an adjoining museum displaying the many objects exhumed on the site. It's another 3.5km to the Château de Montaigne (July & Aug daily 10am–6.30pm; Sept–June Wed–Sun 10am–noon & 2–5.30pm; closed Jan; €4), where Michel de Montaigne wrote many of his chatty, digressive essays on the nature of life and humankind. All that remains of the original building is Montaigne's tower-study, its beams inscribed with his maxims; the rest of the Château was rebuilt in pseudo-Renaissance style after a fire in 1885.
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