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Let us leave Cabrerets behind, its Château de Biron and the magnificent mill beside the river. The river stretches like a ribbon of silver.

The center of the village of Cabrerets is not beside the river, but a little higher on the hill near the church. An asphalt road leads there, winding gently along the hillside. 

In Cabrerets, most visitors to Pech Merle stop for a break. The restaurants stand in a neat row around the square. The village stretches along the hillside like an old book, each house seeming to tell a story to anyone who knows how to look.

For pilgrims and hikers, the trial begins in the square. Less than a kilometer to reach the cave, that seems nothing, does it not? The route appears modest, almost trivial. Yet every step along this short distance is an initiation, a prelude to the discovery of an underground world where time has stood still. The air is brisk and the heart, almost despite itself, opens to the promise of mystery.

As a kind of appetizer, here comes a short steep climb to reach the cemetery at the top of the village. The site of Pech Merle lies less than a kilometer from here. The ascent takes place along a narrow and wild trail, like a line of ink drawn across the hillside. 

At the top of the first slope, the cemetery unfolds like a silent theatre, guardian of ancient souls and witness to the passing centuries, a majestic prelude to the cave that awaits you.

At the far end of the cemetery, the slope continues into a light woodland dotted with oaks and boxwood. It is impossible to lose the way. The trail goes straight ahead, steep and rough, along a poor rocky path through the boxwood scrub beneath the shaded arch of the oaks. You will notice that you are walking along a GR route, marked with its red and white stripes. It is still the GR651 as far as Bouziès. 

Below, Cabrerets grows smaller and gradually disappears behind the foliage. The trail becomes almost a secret corridor where light plays hide and seek among the leaves. The boxwood smells of sun and dry earth, while the oaks raise their knotted arms as if to protect us. Down below the village shrinks into a simple backdrop, a miniature toy lost within the green setting of the valley, while your steps move forward toward the unknown.

The steep trail then disappears into the boxwood above Cabrerets. The heart opens gladly to the impressions of both gentleness and wildness that the landscape inspires. Stones roll beneath the feet, breathing grows deeper, and the eyes already search for the distant line of the valley. 

One kilometer is not the end of the world, is it? Here the path turns around the hillside and soon reaches the parasols and ice cream sellers, those high places of tourism so loved by visitors. You have arrived at Pech Merle. The path opens gently, welcoming walkers like an outstretched hand. The colorful parasols scatter bright touches across the landscape, while the air carries the scent of ice cream and childhood memories. Yet behind this light animation, the cave reminds you of the grandeur and mystery of the underground world where time has stopped and where every stone tells an ancient story.

Pech Merle deserves a visit. The caves are exceptional and an excellent educational museum stands on the site. The hills of Pech Merle are riddled with cavities that remain inaccessible to the public, true sanctuaries of shadow and silence. Pech Merle is an exception, for here the earth has opened like a memory and has brought to light the intact splendor of prehistoric art that is twenty-nine thousand years old. It is a natural gallery of art, a mineral cathedral shaped by time and water, composed of seven chambers extending for more than one kilometer. On the walls, mammoths, bison, spotted horses and negative handprints answer one another in an inhabited silence. The ochre and black pigments still vibrate as if the artist had only just left his stone workshop. Among the draperies of calcite and the strange shapes of stalactites and stalagmites, the visitor moves carefully as if walking inside a dream. Electric lamps reveal a fragile beauty that seems almost unreal. Suddenly, in hardened clay, the footprint of an adolescent appears, sealed there for millennia, a moving signature of humanity. This simple and naked imprint connects our lives today with those of yesterday and for a moment abolishes the abyss of time. Each chamber opens like a living book where the memory of humans and animals is written without words. The walls covered with figures and signs reveal a sensitivity both delicate and mysterious. Here stands a spotted horse, there a human silhouette, elsewhere a cluster of handprints blown with ochre powder like a breath of soul fixed upon the stone. Geologists admire the slow formation of the concretions, archaeologists read there the first intuition of symbol. Pech Merle is the rare union of natural sublimity and human genius. Pass this way if you can before the flow of tourists arrives in its turn. Enter the half-light, listen to the discreet sound of water still shaping the rock, allow yourself to be drawn into the eternity of the place. Pech Merle is not merely visited, it is experienced, breathed and dreamed.

The GR651 crosses the asphalt surface of the car parks of civilization above the caves in order to reach the causse. This is the direction of the riding farm. The route follows the gravel road toward the farm for almost one kilometer. The transition between the crowd and nature takes place gently. Car parks give way to gravel, asphalt fades away like a curtain, and the gaze rediscovers open space, the wind and the song of birds. The causse appears, vast and open, promising silence and freedom. 

The path then runs out across the heath, winding between grasses and bushes as the horizon gradually widens. Each step seems lighter, carried by the simple and wild beauty of the countryside. A magnificent and very wide stony dirt path that undulates and winds through the heath accompanies you almost as far as Conduché in the plain. The GR651 follows for a section an educational trail called the “Chemin du Temps”. It is sometimes pleasant to have the story of the universe told while walking in nature. The wide stony path becomes an invitation to dream. It winds like a ribbon of light across the heath, while the “Chemin du Temps” murmurs the history of the world, revealing geology, plants and the centuries buried beneath your feet. Nature here becomes both teacher and guide.

The path then follows the ridge. It runs up and down gently in a whirl of colors. The red earth contrasts with the green of the boxwood, with their vivid colors, low branches and twisted trunks sometimes split with age, forming intricate arabesques. The horizon is barred by the depth of forests spreading along the undulating line of the hills. Each crest reveals a changing picture, a symphony of tones and textures. The bright red earth contrasts with the dark green of the boxwood, while the trees, shaped by time, form arabesques that seem guided by an invisible hand. The deep forests in the distance give a sense of mystery and infinity, and the soul of the walker gladly surrenders to it. 

Soon afterwards, the path changes character for a few hundred meters. The path, once smooth, turns into a field of ochre stones amid more exuberant vegetation.

The landscape is so captivating that time and kilometers pass unnoticed. Before long, you arrive two kilometers from Conduché.

Then the causse opens again, magnificent, first in low vegetation that feels almost Mediterranean.

Farther on, across long gentle gradients, spruce trees sometimes mark the landscape. The generous oaks seem to have granted them passage. They take advantage of it by spreading their branches like broad umbrellas over the silence.

Farther on, the path gradually enters woodland that becomes denser.

Yet you must descend from the causse. The descent here is steep and long. It takes place among boxwood and oaks along a narrower path. Stones accompany the walker most of the way.

At the bottom of the descent, a pause at Conduché is announced.

To reach Bouziès, unfortunately there is only one option, which is to walk along the main axis of the D662, the departmental road that runs from Cajarc to Cahors.

It is not long, barely a kilometer. Yet in season this road is very busy and there is no pavement.

At the end of this tedious stretch, the route turns left to cross the Lot. 

On an iron bridge the route crosses the majestic river toward Bouziès. 

Quite quickly the railway line reaches the bridge over the Lot. There are places along the path where magic still happens, and this is one of the finest examples. With your feet on the oak beams that slowly rot among the tangle of ironwork, the walker has time to lose himself in the unforgettable sight of the Lot flowing slowly and tirelessly, as the song says. This green and placid water, contrasting with the rust of the bridge, is a little like the smile of children that makes life more beautiful. 

On the other side of the bridge, scrub had begun to invade the railway line, although it was not yet completely overgrown. That will come, inevitably, if nothing is done. Nature always wins its battles.

Bouziès is not far away, a very small commune with fewer than one hundred inhabitants. Bouziès is also a small port on the Lot with a certain level of river activity. Accommodation can be found there.

The GR651 ends here. You now leave the Célé valley for new horizons. As mentioned in the introduction, we will pass through St Cirq-Lapopie and will not follow the direct route toward Cahors. From this point the GR36/46 takes over.

Many tourists arrive here in Bouziès to follow the famous “Chemin de Halage”, that mythical ribbon leading to the foot of St Cirq-Lapopie. 

Barely four kilometers separate the two places, yet what a journey. A small dirt road runs flat, faithfully following the course of the Lot. It passes beneath the old railway line, the same one you may have walked earlier while braving the bushes from Conduché along the rails, as if the past itself leaned down to greet the walkers of today. The Lot here is navigable. The water glides slowly, carrying throughout the day the changing reflections of cliffs and clouds. Small river cruises move quietly upstream and downstream, leaving a silver wake upon the water.

The path briefly enters woodland, following the river in a humid silence. Gradually the cliff approaches, raising before the walker its limestone wall shining brightly in the light.

Suddenly comes the revelation, the extraordinary encounter with the polished paving stones of the “Chemin de Halage”. They wind beneath the cliff, following its folds and its shades of grey, ochre and blue until they almost merge with the water itself. The towpath, built in 1845, once allowed horses to pull heavy cargo boats loaded with goods such as Cahors wine, barrel fittings and dried plums. The echo of their steps still seems to vibrate beneath the invisible hooves of the animals. .

The beauty of this site overwhelms anyone who lingers here. One remains silent, struck by an ancient sense of wonder. And yet it is not listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Perhaps an oversight, perhaps simply an omission of youth in the classification. 

It is here that the modern sculptor Daniel Monnier left his mark. Large bas reliefs carved into the limestone wall celebrate the fossil life of the place, shells, fish, ferns and traces of ancient tides. Art merges with the stone in a mineral whisper.

At the end of the “Chemin de Halage” the path returns to open countryside. It continues to follow the river, a faithful companion beneath the shadow of the cliffs, as if reluctant to leave it.

In places it moves away slightly to follow the diversion canals. Here the river has its moods, sudden rises, retreats and unpredictable currents. The locks are its patient guardians. The walker then follows a corridor of vegetation, silver poplars, twisted Robinia, black alders, graceful ashes and tall reeds bending in the wind. Sometimes the trunks lean over the water as if dipping their leaves into the river. 

The road now unfolds its ribbon beneath the cliff. The rock walls flow with shadow and light, giving walkers the sensation of being very small at the foot of these great ramparts.

Let us follow these bold walkers. The trail clings to the cliff and climbs in tight zigzags through dense woodland. The air becomes cooler, greener and more humid. The slope is steep but the eye forgets the fatigue. At each opening a ray of light slips through and the scent of moss rises from the ground. There is no danger here, only the pure pleasure of effort.

In these funnels of greenery, the walker suddenly discovers far below the Lot where the small river cruises glide, and high above the jagged outline of the houses of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie. Stone and water, sky and time unite in a single view.

The trail becomes narrower and more winding before finally delivering hikers onto the heights of the village. Others, the tourists arriving by road, reach the village from the opposite side, often from the parking areas below. Their steps are less breathless, yet their wonder is no less great.

And here is Saint-Cirq-Lapopie. Words become unnecessary. The village reveals itself like a painting already familiar though never before seen, brown roofs, paved lanes, façades with narrow windows, the warm evening shadows resting on the tiles. Nothing more needs to be said. One simply looks, breathes and listens.

Thanks to this strategic position the site was probably occupied from the Gallo Roman period, although the village developed mainly from the ninth and tenth centuries. During the Middle Ages it became an important fortified place in the Quercy region, divided among several powerful families, notably the Lapopie, the Gourdon and the Cardaillac, who built castles and fortified houses at the top of the rock. The village prospered through craft activities and trade connected with navigation on the Lot where goods and materials circulated. It later endured difficult periods during the Hundred Years War in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and again during the Wars of Religion in the sixteenth century. Some fortifications and buildings were damaged, yet the village preserved much of its medieval architecture. During the nineteenth century the population declined together with economic activity. In the twentieth century the site was rediscovered by artists and writers drawn by its spectacular landscape and its medieval atmosphere. Today Saint-Cirq-Lapopie is considered one of the most beautiful villages in France and remains a major tourist site of the region.