Coverage France
Audio Guide Périgueux
app, one-time €4.99
Périgueux is one of France's oldest cities, built on the bones of the Gallo-Roman city of Vesunna and medieval Puy-Saint-Front. Its skyline is defined by the five stone domes of Saint-Front Cathedral, modelled on St Mark's Basilica in Venice. Layers of Roman ruins, Romanesque churches, and Renaissance townhouses sit within a few minutes' walk of each other, making the city an unusually compact survey of two thousand years of architecture.
14+ researched places in the app
Yes. Parroo is a self-guided audio guide for Périgueux: 14 researched places, from Saint-Front Cathedral to Tower of Vésone and Vesunna, Gallo-Roman Museum, each with a short summary, a full article, and a roughly three-minute audio story in German, English, and French. Buy once, no subscription, no booking. Start whenever you like.
Audio sample: Saint-Front Cathedral
Périgueux
Places researched in this city
A selection of the 14 places we've researched in this city. The full set is in the Parroo app.
- Byzantine cathedral
- Gallo-Roman ruins
- Medieval towers
- Renaissance townhouses
- Riverside heritage houses
-
01
Saint-Front Cathedral
The five domes of Saint-Front were modelled on St Mark's Basilica in Venice, making this 12th-century cathedral one of the most unusual Romanesque buildings in France. It was pillaged during the Huguenot Wars in 1575, when the relics of Saint-Front were destroyed, and later became a UNESCO World Heritage site on the pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela.
-
02
Tower of Vésone
This hollow cylinder of Roman masonry, standing 24 metres tall, is the cella of a temple dedicated to the goddess Vesunna, the tutelary deity of the ancient city. The large breach in its wall is traditionally attributed to the work of Saint Front himself, who was said to have expelled the pagan spirit within it.
-
03
Vesunna, Gallo-Roman Museum
The remains of a 1st-to-3rd-century Roman townhouse were only found in 1959 when ground was broken for apartment blocks, which were then stopped. Architect Jean Nouvel wrapped the excavated domus in a modern glass-and-steel structure opened in 2003, leaving the underfloor heating channels and painted walls visible in place.
-
04
Gallo-Roman Arenas
A private citizen named Aulus Pompeius Dumnomotus paid for this entire amphitheatre out of his own pocket in the 1st century AD, funding it 'cum ornamentis omnibus de sua pecunia.' The arena once held up to 20,000 spectators; today its elliptical outline survives as a public garden, with the medieval city wall built straight through what used to be the stands.
-
05
Church of Saint Stephen of the City
Built over a Gallo-Roman temple to Mars, this was Périgueux's cathedral for centuries before Saint-Front took the title. Huguenot forces demolished two of its four domes and its bell tower in 1577, and the truncated building that remains only completed a major restoration in 2021, at a cost of 2.8 million euros.
-
06
Mataguerre Tower
Of the 28 towers that once ringed the medieval ramparts of Puy-Saint-Front, this is the only one left standing. Between 1622 and 1831 it served as the city's gunpowder store, a use that perhaps explains why no one was keen to demolish it.
-
07
Quayside Houses
The Maison Lambert, known locally as the 'Maison des Colonnes,' has an open sculpted gallery on its façade that is genuinely rare for 16th-century domestic architecture in the Périgord. The three adjacent houses along the right bank of the Isle were each built by different wealthy families across the 15th and 16th centuries and are now all classified as historical monuments.
-
08
7 more places to discover
In the Parroo app
Good to know
14 researched places, from Saint-Front Cathedral and the Tower of Vésone to lesser-known spots like the Mataguerre Tower. Each one has a short summary, a full article, and a ~3-minute audio story.
Yes. Every place has a ~3-minute audio story, written from the perspective of a guide standing next to you and produced with premium narration, not the article read aloud.
German, English, and French. Pick whichever you'd rather read or listen in.
No booking, no signup. It's a self-guided walk you start whenever you like. You do need a connection for now to stream the audio and load articles; offline support is something we're still building.
A one-time €4.99 for the whole city, no subscription and no recurring cost. You buy Périgueux once and keep access to all 14 places with text and audio.
Nearby cities
Open this city in Parroo
Get the full articles, audio stories, and map for this city in the Parroo app. One payment per geography. Yours to keep.
Updated: 2026-09-25