Royat Auvergne

Lupin is back for Season 3 – does it have roots in the deep heart of France’s Auvergne?

Karen and I loved every episode of the first 2 seasons of Lupin, the French series that jumped to the top of the Netflix charts around the world.  Now it’s back for a third season, with another great “heist” story – but it’s really the character of Arsanne Diop (the modern-day incarnation of Lupin) that makes the series worth watching.  He’s a “gentleman thief”, a Robin-Hood hero who operates outside the law but is driven by a bigger sense of justice and “doing the right thing”.  (Think The Equalizer but with elegance and a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor.)  The series also makes for an excellent opportunity to practice your French, if you’re inclined that way; you can watch it dubbed […]

Visit Puymartin – the castle haunted by the White Lady

To be clear:  I don’t believe in ghosts, I don’t care much for ghost stories, and I’ve never written about one for this blog.  Still, if any of the places I’ve visited in the deep heart of France ever had a legitimate claim to harboring a ghost, it must surely be the lovely Chateau du Puymartin in the Périgord Noir, only 6 km (3.6 miles) from Sarlat-la-Canéda.  Karen and I spent a pleasant morning there in June, and even though the site exploits the incredible story of “the White Lady” to the max, the castle is an interesting and rewarding place to visit for plenty of other reasons. As with so many of the fortified châteaux in this part of […]

An afternoon in the classical gardens at Eyrignac

The calendar says Spring should be here already…but today is another in a recent string of wet, chilly days and I’m tired of it!  I really meant to write a new post about one of my favorite towns in the Corrèze (and I still will!), but today I’m feeling like recalling something more appropriate to the season – the memorable Spring day when I visited the Gardens of Eyrignac…       We’re in the Périgord Noir region of the Dordogne – only 20 minutes northeast of the great medieval market town of Sarlat-la-Canéda.  Eyrignac is just one place to visit in this concentrated area where you’ll find some of the best places for tourism anywhere in western Europe.  I’ve […]

At Vulcania, take a journey deep into the heart of the volcanoes of central France

You can’t talk about the deep heart of France without mentioning its volcanoes.  They’ve made frequent appearances in this blog, in stories about Blaise Pascal’s groundbreaking experiments on barometric pressure done at the top of the Puy de Dome, the grinding challenge of the mountain stages of the Tour de France, or the medieval lava quarries at Volvic that gave so many landmark buildings in this region their characteristic gray-black color.  The volcanoes dominate the skyline behind the Auvergne’s largest cities, and even though they are all dormant (for now) their superheated internal plumbing feeds the hot springs that have brought tourists here since the first humans inhabited the area.

The Manoir de Veygoux: Humble beginnings for one of Napoleon’s greatest generals

If you’ve followed this blog, you know I have a longstanding fascination with people who come from difficult beginnings in remote parts of the country and somehow forge a national reputation and a lasting place in history. It’s not that I follow the “great man” school of historic thought – I don’t! – but many of these people just have personal stories that are so compelling they are worth knowing about.  Joan of Arc is certainly a prominent example in French history; in this space, I’ve written about Lafayette (hero of both the American and French Revolutions), about Pope Clement VI (a monk from the remote abbey at La Chaise-Dieu),  and about the Count of Montmorin (Louix XVI’s “right-hand man”), […]

Visit Limeuil – it’s officially one of the “Most Beautiful Villages” in France

I’m not even halfway up the steep principal street and already I’m gasping for air as I approach the center of Limeuil. Fortunately, there are plaques telling the story of the village’s history every few yards, so it’s easy enough to stop and read one to mask my lack of physical fitness.  I can’t remember an approach to a town’s center this physically demanding since my visits to the great fortress at Beynac, or the upper reaches of the castle keep at Commarque.  But already I can tell that this town is worth the effort. There are two very good reasons they ask all visitors to park at the bottom of this steep hill.  The first is practical:  Limeuil is […]

Aubrac France Auvergne

In the Aubrac: What It Means to Feel “At Home” in the Deep Heart of France

Cet article est consacré à mon ami Luc-Emmanuel (qui m’a convaincu de reprendre ce travail en tant que blogeur et qui m’a posé la question à la base de cette réflexion) et à Karen (ma chere epouse qui tolere mes marottes et qui est ma partenaire dans cette aventure.) Is there someplace in the world (other than your actual home) that feels like home to you?  Someplace that is instantly comfortable – a relative’s house, a specific beach, some small town or a sprawling city — where you can imagine spending significant chunks of the time remaining to you on this planet? Since I started this blog six years ago, people have regularly asked me “What is it about France […]

Blaise Pascal’s 400th birthday party is underway in the deep heart of France

It’s official:  Clermont-Ferrand has just launched its year-long celebration of the 400th anniversary of the birth of Blaise Pascal, “le génie Clermontois.”  The party started earlier this month with a performance of music from Pascal’s lifetime in the lovely church of Notre Dame du Port.  Over the next 12 months, the celebration continues with: Exhibits at the Henri-Lecoq museum of science and natural history and the Roger-Quilliot museum of art An online collection of documents at the Overnia (Clermont’s digital library of historical materials) about the great man’s life, as well as reproductions of his most famous books and essays A year-long series of concerts, films, lectures and roundtables featuring distinguished artists and scholars celebrating Pascal’s life and the lasting […]

Chateau de Montmorin

Reflections on the Ruined Castle at Montmorin

Somehow my visit to the crumbling castle ruins at Montmorin feels more important to me than the site itself really warrants.  From the peak of this ancient little volcano, you can see forever – or at least that’s how it seems to me on a particular August afternoon in the deep heart of France.  The entire Chaine des Puys, that iconic 25-mile-long range of extinct volcanoes that dominates the country’s center, is visible along the horizon to the west.  As it happens so often in my travels through this region, I feel like the only person left on earth after some global cataclysm.  I’ve come to visit the Chateau de Montmorin, a jumble of ruins at the end of a […]

Valence France

VALENCE: France’s “Gateway to the South” has a big-city feel

I’m not a jaded traveler – but neither am I easily surprised.  Valence did it, though, more than most of the places I’ve visited in France in the past year.  It’s a lovely small city that feels much larger and more urban than I expected.  It’s sophisticated for its size – one of its leading families put the city on the map as one of the great destinations for gourmet dining in France!  And with one foot in the Midi and the other in the deep heart of the country, it’s ideally positioned to be your base for exploring a part of France you might never see otherwise.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIqAy4oN1KQ Some of Valence’s sophistication is easily explained: this is […]

Délicieux – a good story about good food set in the deep heart of France

OK, it’s not actually a true story – but the 2021 film Délicieux is a good story (“93% fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes), and for the purposes of this blog it’s a perfect story because it unfolds in the Cantal, one of the most beautiful regions in the deep heart of France.  Directed by Eric Besnard, the comedy is available now to stream on Amazon Prime and YouTube Movies. In the movie, Grégory Gadebois plays Manceron, an extraordinary, if sometimes temperamental, chef who gets dismissed from his position cooking for a French duke.  What did he do wrong?  For a banquet with the duke’s distinguished guests, he made a dish (one of 40!)  that includes potatoes at a time when the […]