Le journal britannique The Telegraph a placé Bergerac au 6ᵉ rang des villes les plus charmantes de France, la distinguant comme la seule représentante de la Nouvelle-Aquitaine dans ce classement, aux côtés de Saint-Jean-de-Luz. La ville est décrite comme un véritable régal pour les sens, avec des lieux emblématiques tels que son unique musée du tabac en France, sa Maison des Vins et une gastronomie raffinée d’exception.
Bergerac séduit également par son charme historique, révélé à travers ses ruelles pittoresques et son riche patrimoine architectural.
Dans ce classement, la ville devance des destinations comme Saint-Malo ou Beaune, tout en se positionnant juste derrière Annecy et son célèbre lac.
You can’t disassociate Bergerac from fleshly pleasures. You truly wouldn’t want to. For a start, the Dordogne’s second town has France’s only tobacco museum. This covers the Dordogne’s weed-farming history, but also the entire 3,000-year tobacco story. Learn, among much else, that in tsarist Russia smokers had their lips cut off; in Persia their noses; in China their heads.
Secondly, as a south-west wine capital, the place has a new and groovy Maison des Vins. The wine bar slots into a 17th-century Franciscan Recollects monastery, overlooking the river. Sipping Bergerac wines and chatting on the evening-tide terrace makes even slobs seem civilised. And, thirdly, the products of south-west French farming – foie gras, duck confit, truffled this and that – flow into the market and restaurants from the surrounding Dordogne countryside. (My favourite duck dish is found at young cheffe Klo’s L’Authentik – battered pulled-duck balls with spiced gravy).
Bergerac tells its own tale in sinuous streets too narrow for two fat friars, wonky half-timbering and Renaissance townhouses, all descending to the Dordogne river, which ferried Bergerac wines to the world.
To stay : The Hotel de Bordeaux, the oldest in town, is practical and comes with unsuspected gardens and very pleasant staff (doubles from £57).
