Experience the best of Agen

Agen sits on the Garonne in Lot-et-Garonne, in the south-west of France. The old centre keeps half-timbered houses and the cathedral of Saint-Caprais, whose Romanesque east end contrasts with a later nave. The town's pride is the Pont-canal, an aqueduct more than 500 metres long on twenty-three arches that carries the Garonne lateral canal across the river.

The fine-arts museum occupies several linked mansions in the old town. North and east of Agen, the bastide towns of Lot-et-Garonne, such as Villeneuve-sur-Lot and Monflanquin, have arcaded squares laid out in the Middle Ages. Nérac, tied to Henri IV, lies to the south-west, and the Armagnac vineyards of Gascony begin beyond.

Agen's prunes come from plum orchards along the Garonne valley and turn up in tarts, stuffed with cream, or soaked in Armagnac, beside duck confit, foie gras and Gascon stews. Plum blossom whitens the orchards in early spring, and the harvest follows in late summer.