It’s almost 8:00, the end of a long travel day, and the heat of a summer afternoon clings to the sidewalk as I walk to the restaurant. Seen from a distance, it’s not an especially impressive place – on the ground floor of a 60-year-old hotel, a little frumpy but comfortable enough. The Moulins train station is across the street, so people come by in waves as the trains come and go. I’m greeted by the couple I’ll call Monsieur and Madame. They’re clearly the owners of the restaurant, and in the course of the evening they will impress me as offering the highest expression of the qualities we love about French restaurant service: pleasant, a little formal, gliding in and […]
Category: Life in the Deep Heart Of France
Driving to Villeneuve – but which one?
After a couple of very pleasant nights in Moulins, I decided this morning to hit the road to see some of the smaller towns in this part of the Allier. The temperature was rising, the sky had only a few wispy clouds against a rich blue background, and my trusty Michelin Green Guide had a nice section laying out a driving circuit around Moulins with several old chateaux and the little Romanesque churches I love – a perfect day in central France! Things started well. A quick stop at the church in Yzeure, a side trip down a dirt road for a look at the Chateau at Seganges, and I was ready to move on toward St. Menoux. Now, I should […]
Top 5 Stereotypes About the Auvergne
Recently La Montagne, the main newspaper chain covering central France, had a great idea: interview a group of French tourists arriving in the Auvergne for the first time just as they are getting off the bus, then catch up with them again a few days later to see if their opinions have changed. The question: “What preconceptions do you have about the Auvergne and its inhabitants?”Jean, a 70-year-old from Paris, said he thinks of Auvergnats as “coal merchants and brasserie owners”. Denise, also from Paris, said “When you say Auvergne to me, I immediately think of volcanoes and the stinginess of the people.” The final word came from Bernard, another Parisian: “For me, the Auvergne means ‘prehistoric’”.I’ll come back to […]
What Draws Me Back To “The Deep Heart of France”?
I’m no psychologist, but I’m always curious about what draws people to their personal passions. Why does someone love to spend her afternoons knitting while her husband would rather spend the day at a flea market looking for baseball cards? Why does one friend read serious history books while another reads nothing but thrillers? Why do I love college football but my cousin only likes the pros? More to the point for this blog: “Why do so many people have such a particular fascination with France?” And even more precisely, the question my friends often direct to me: “Why do you care so much about the Auvergne, the Centre, the Limousin, and all the other regions that make up what […]
4 Random Things We Learned in Our First Weekend in France
We decided to launch our French travel experience the second weekend we lived in the country. We arrived in Clermont-Ferrand on a Tuesday, I went to the office the next day, and we used the first weekend to get settled in our temporary apartment. By the second Saturday, though, we were ready for a day trip to see what we had gotten ourselves into.Our target for this first adventure? Le Puy en Velay, one of the most important medieval towns in the deep heart of France. We’ll see Le Puy in detail in another post – but on the drive there we were startled to see the crumbling ruins of a great castle, sailing like a clipper ship on a […]
