Taxi Bordeaux → Souillac

Souillac is a small town of 3,800 inhabitants in the north of the Lot department, at the confluence of the Borrèze and the Dordogne, on the border between the Périgord Noir and Quercy. This strategic geographical position has made it, since the Middle Ages, a major commercial crossroads on the route linking Paris to southern France. The Abbey Church of Sainte-Marie de Souillac is a jewel of 12th-century Romanesque art. Its interior tympanum, moved inside the church during the Hundred Years' War for protection, features a unique iconographic programme in France: the dancing Prophet Isaiah (considered one of the finest Romanesque reliefs in the world), the Sacrifice of Abraham and an intertwining of fantastical animals of exceptional sculptural virtuosity. The church itself, with its three domes on pendentives (Périgord-Quercy style), recalls the Cathedral of Cahors, and the Souillac church is sometimes called the 'little cathedral'. The Museum of Automatons and Robotics, housed in the former Benedictine abbey, is unique in France: over 3,000 automatons from the 18th to 20th centuries, including the remarkable Roullet-Decamps collection (France's leading automaton manufacturers since 1832). The Lacave Caves, 8 km from Souillac, offer a magical underground spectacle: stalactites and stalagmites illuminated by ultraviolet lighting effects revealing natural fluorescence in the rock. Souillac is the ideal gateway to exploring the Dordogne valley: Rocamadour is 25 km, the Padirac chasm 30 km, Sarlat 30 km, Domme 25 km.