As I walked into the little village of Orcival on a bright autumn morning, I was momentarily distracted by a dog standing in the 2nd-story window of an old house. This alert little guardian interested me enough to stop to take his picture. As I started to put away my camera, though, I was startled by a loud voice in the upstairs window behind me. “Hey, you – you that likes taking all those photos of my house.” Uh-oh, I thought; he must be offended that I might be invading his privacy. So I was surprised when he went on. “Why don’t you turn around and have a look at my door, too?” What followed was one of […]
Category: Puy-de-Dome
Visit the ancient Abbey at Mozac in the Deep Heart of France
Given the number of old churches that show up on this website, you might think I’m Catholic. I’m not – I’m not even conventionally religious — so why do I love the ancient basilicas and medieval abbeys scattered across the landscape of the deep heart of France? I found myself thinking about that question again when I parked a few blocks away and made my way through a dense leafy walkway to the great abbey of Mozac. It’s surrounded these days by houses and school buildings, so your imagination has to work overtime to reconstruct what this place must have been like at its origins. (The whole town is now folded in as a suburb of Riom.) As I […]
80 Years Ago This Town Was The Capital of France For One Day
Editor’s note: This week the French press has been covering the 80th anniversary of the terrible events that led to the sudden “fall” of France as Hitler’s armies swept past the Maginot Line and into the heart of the country. We’re reminded again of how rapidly the social order tumbled into chaos with the great “Exodus” of refugees moving from north to south; we’re hearing again DeGaulle’s moving speeches on the BBC calling on French people to fight back against the Nazis. …and all of that set me wondering about the days, 80 years ago this week, when the war finally came to Clermont-Ferrand in the deep heart of France. How can we even imagine how it felt to stand […]
The Tour de France comes to Châtel-Guyon in 2020
This year the 107th running of the Tour de France has a special interest to those of us who love the mountains and gorgeous landscapes of central France. The Tour will stop in my old hometown, Clermont-Ferrand, on Saturday, July 11th, where riders will set out on the 197 km (118 mile) trip to Lyon. But the day before (Friday, July 10th), they will first have to tackle one of the Tour’s famous mountain passages, starting in the beautiful spa town of Châtel-Guyon and climbing a total of 4,400 meters on a 191 km ride through a chain of volcanoes on the way to the Puy Mary in the Cantal. That announcement brought to mind several memories of our experiences […]
Visit the Chateau de Chazeron in the Deep Heart of France
This post has been too long in coming – but we’re finally settled in our new place and I’m happy to be back online. In the intervening weeks I’ve had some time to reflect on the places that resonate most vividly in my memories of living and traveling in the deep heart of France. It’s only natural, then, that this post takes me back to the Auvergne for a first-time visit to just such a place – the fine little Chateau de Chazeron, near the great church at Orcines in the Puy-de-Dome département. In fact, the castle at Chazeron matches all the criteria that make a place memorable for me: Although there’s some speculation that this was a holy site […]
Visit the medieval castle at Tournoel in the deep heart of France
I don’t know why I have waited so long to write about the Chateau de Tournoël since the 800-year-old castle figures in several of our most enduring memories of France. It was a ramshackle pile of rubble when we first moved to the Auvergne in 1997. But the castle ruins dominated the horizon from several vantage points as we drove back and forth from our house in Sayat, north of the Auvergnat capital of Clermont-Ferrand, and we wanted to know more. Tournoël was one of the first places we visited en famille — and it truly was a ruin in those days, uninhabited, unrestored, and a little dangerous. I have vivid memories (and some old videotape) of us climbing up […]
UPDATE: Clermont Auvergne Wins The European Rugby Challenge Cup Again
There’s a huge party in Clermont-Ferrand this weekend. Yesterday the players of the ASM Clermont Auvergne rugby team came home from England to celebrate their victory over La Rochelle (by a dominating score of 36 – 16) to claim this year’s Challenge Cup. The annual tournament brings together 18 of the best clubs from three major leagues — England’s Premiership Rugby, France’s Top 14, and the international Pro 14 — plus 2 more teams from the Contintental Shield tournament representing the second tier of European Clubs. It was an exciting match for Clermont Auvergne fans. Greig Laidlaw (from Scotland) accounted for half of all the ASM’s points, and the Guardian newspaper described the action as ” a Barbarians-style […]
After the Paris fire – here’s another French cathedral at risk
I was surprised at first, in the aftermath of the terrible fire which ravaged Notre-Dame de Paris this month, by the sudden big flow of readers who’ve searched out my article on why there are roosters on top of so many French churches… Then I saw this picture from the recovery of Notre Dame’s own rooster, which had been sitting atop the spire that tumbled down so dramatically in the course of the fire. And the discovery was even more important than I’d imagined; according to the Catholic News Agency, “the rooster also functioned as a lightning rod for the cathedral and contained one of the thorns from the crown of thorns, as well as relics of the French saints […]
UPDATE: That day when Julius Caesar lost a battle in the deep heart of France
I just came across a short piece from National Geographic summarizing the life and accomplishments of Julius Caesar. Before he made himself “dictator for life,” the magazine notes, he had to prove his worth as a powerful military commander — and he started that quest in the deep heart of France, trying to subdue the tribes of Gauls who controlled that part of Europe. Here’s how National Geographic summarized his campaign in France (and the phrase that caught my attention): Caesar’s seven-year Gaul campaign ended triumphantly in 51 B.C. The Gaul leader Vercingetorix was paraded in chains through Rome before being ritually strangled. In all, Caesar’s campaign killed or enslaved more than a million Gauls […]
Visit the medieval Chateau de Cordès in the Deep Heart of France
Almost 3 years ago I told you about the beautiful small Chateau de Cordès, hidden far from the normal tourist paths in the mountains of central France. I mentioned then that, according to our guide, the castle’s owners might be interested in selling the place if the right buyer came along. Well, now it IS for sale; for “only” 2.5 million Euros (US $2,970,254), you could live in a nationally-listed “Historic Monument” surrounded by gardens designed by the same guy who worked for King Louis XIV! Read about this historic chateau here, then check out the property listing on the Forbes Global Properties site. ————————————————————————– Our guide at the Chateau de Cordès clearly loves his job. He’s also the “chief […]
At Notre Dame du Port: What happened in this medieval church echoes in the headlines of today…
On this frigid, dark winter day, I’m thinking back to another time… It was summer, 86 degrees and humid in Clermont-Ferrand, headed to 90 later in the week… Most offices and houses here don’t have air conditioning, so any respite from this oppressive heat was welcome. For me, one of the best places to be on days like this is inside the ancient basilica of Notre Dame du Port. I leave my room, already hot as a car in a Texas parking lot by lunchtime, and labor up the sharp little street from Place des Carmes to spend an hour in the cool dark interior of this medieval wonder. Rebuilt in its current form beginning in 1185 C.E. — but […]
Is Murol the coolest medieval castle in the deep heart of France?
A user on Quora recently asked me “What are the best castles in France?” I listed some of my favorites — Beynac, Castelnaud-la-Chapelle, Polignac, Les Tours de Merle – with a focus on places removed from the “standard” touristy sights of the Loire Valley. But as I worked on my answer, it struck me that I have never actually written about my favorite chateau in all of France — the massive defensive fortress of Murol, in the mountains of the Cantal. Today’s post is meant to correct that error and introduce you to one of the best overall tourist destinations in the deep heart of the country. I’ve made several visits to Murol just for the pleasure of photographing it. […]
