Every year around this time, the France 3 television network invites people to vote on the “most preferred village in France”. (Last year, the winner was Cassel, up in the north near Dunkirk and the border with Belgium.) When the candidates for 2019 were announced this week, I was thrilled to find Souvigny among the 14 nominees — it’s there as the representative of the Auvergne in the deep heart of the country, and it’s easily one of the most photogenic and historically interesting places I’ve had the fortune to visit in recent years. You can vote yourself for your own “most preferred village”. Just click here and you’ll go to the France 3 site, where you just click on […]
Tag: Montlucon
8 Cool Things To Do This Spring in the Deep Heart of France
It feels like winter has fought to hold on longer than it should this year in France. There’s been snow from Paris to the Mediterranean several times over the last few weeks, and the temperature tonight in Clermont-Ferrand will likely be close to freezing. In fact, the arrival of spring in France this year reminds us of a lesson we learned the first time we moved there. We arrived in the Auvergne in early March 1997, and the weather was glorious – warm, brilliantly sunny, and welcoming. “Wow,” we thought, “we are REALLY going to like it here!” A few weeks later, on Easter Sunday, we awoke to snow blocking out the sun, and when we went to the […]
Take a day trip from Paris to see this new expo at MuPop in Montlucon
I know there’s enormous competition for your time, attention and money when you’re traveling in France. Even if you’ve already seen all the major tourist sites in Paris, there are a dozen or more enticing day-trip opportunities in the area — Versailles, Fontainbleau, Chantilly, Giverny, among others. But if you’re going to be in Paris this summer — and if you’re a musician or someone who really loves music – you should get out of Paris for a day and head south to MuPop , the Museum of Popular Music in Montluçon. It’s a great trip, too, if you want a glimpse into the real heart of France far from the beaten path taken by the crowds of tourists you’ll […]
6 Cool Things to Do In The Deep Heart of France This Fall
Autumn is not just a physically beautiful phenomenon in the deep heart of France – although the rich colors of the leaves and tendrils of wood smoke rising from chimneys do give it the quality of a fine Renoir painting. It’s also part of the annual rhythm of life here – work hard all year, leave for vacations in August, then come back charged up and ready to attack again after the rentrée in early September. That’s reflected in the number of events and programmed activities you’ll find at this time of the year in central France. Here’s a round-up of 6 of the most interesting things to do this fall in the Auvergne region. People in this part of […]
Montluçon – Medieval Home of the Bourbon Dukes
A wedding is about to start when I arrive in Montluçon on a humid Saturday afternoon. The church – the Eglise Saint Pierre – was built in the 12th century, so I do the math. If you assume 1 wedding a week (and that’s probably estimating on the low side), that means more than a thousand couples have gotten married here over the centuries – and this is only one of several significant churches in town. A family crowd is gathered in the little square by the main doors of the church. The bride, her train held off the cobblestones by a teenage girl, is being tended by her mother, who’s wearing a long black gown in spite of the […]
MuPoP in Montlucon is a must for music lovers
If you’re a musician – or someone who loves music – you should get out of Paris for a day and head south to MuPop , the Museum of Popular Music in Montluçon.(And yes, I know there’s enormous competition for your time, attention and money when you’re traveling in France. Trust me, though – this is worth the day away from the capital!) MuPop is an exceptionally well-curated collection of instruments, songs, and stories about musicians from the past 200 years or so. You’re given a set of headphones at the entrance, with a simple point-and-choose control to let you listen to what you’re seeing. In each of the exhibits of musical instruments there are good demonstrations of how they […]
