Villeneuve-sur-Lot is the main town of the eastern Lot-et-Garonne, a bastide laid out in 1264 by Alphonse de Poitiers — Louis IX's brother — and still organised around the right-angled grid he ordered. Twenty-three thousand people live here, in red-brick houses on both sides of the Lot, and although it does not draw the crowds that descend on the more photogenic bastides further north, it has its own settled, unpretentious appeal.
The river is what holds the town together. Two old bridges — the Pont-Vieux, which dates to the 13th century, and the more modern Pont de la Libération — cross between the medieval centre on the right bank and the suburb of Eysses on the left. The river path is excellent for an evening walk; in summer pleasure boats run downstream towards Sainte-Livrade-sur-Lot.
The heart of the old town is the arcaded Place Lafayette, a perfect bastide square lined with brick houses on stone arcades. Around it the streets keep their original grid, with two of the original 14th-century gates — the Porte de Paris to the north and the Porte de Pujols to the south — still standing as massive brick towers. The 19th-century Église Sainte-Catherine, built in striking polychrome brick, is the town's other landmark.
Villeneuve makes a sensible base for the Lot valley. The hilltop village of Pujols sits 3 kilometres south, with sweeping views back over the town; the bastides of Monflanquin and Monpazier are within an easy half-day; and the Bordeaux–Toulouse motorway is half an hour west. Tuesday and Saturday markets fill Place Lafayette with regional produce — the local prunes, called pruneaux d'Agen, are grown all around.