Pujols sits on a hill three kilometres above Villeneuve-sur-Lot, looking down on the Lot valley from the ramparts of a fortified medieval village. It is one of the official Plus Beaux Villages de France, and unusually for that list it has earned the title without becoming a theme park — most of the houses inside the walls are still lived in, and the place quietens down completely after the day-trippers leave around six.
The village is tiny: essentially one main street running between two surviving gateways, with the bell-tower of the Église Saint-Nicolas doubling as the south gate. The houses are the local pale gold stone, often half-timbered above the first floor, with stone-flagged squares opening up wherever the street widens. Outside the walls the ground falls away steeply on all sides and the views run for fifteen or twenty kilometres on a clear day — vineyards, prune orchards, and the silvery line of the Lot.
Pujols repays a slow visit. Walk the ramparts, look inside both churches, eat somewhere with a terrace facing the valley, and leave at dusk when the stone goes orange. It pairs well with a morning in the bastides further north — Monpazier, Monflanquin — or with a full day in Villeneuve-sur-Lot below.