Long-time readers know this is not a “commercial” blog, and this post is not meant to be an advertisement. Still, I confess: I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for the Groupe Michelin – my corporate home for the 19 best years of my career in I.T. Yes, it’s a well-managed company (better than anywhere else I ever worked), and yes, they make the best high-performance tires in the world, but there’s more to it. Michelin has one of the longest, most remarkable stories in business history. And you can see some of that history through the particular lens of one of the most interesting museums in central France: L’Aventure Michelin in Clermont-Ferrand.
Category: Puy-de-Dome
Travel back to the Belle Epoque — Visit ROYAT in the Deep Heart of France
To understand the little town of Royat, imagine yourself strolling through an elegant park with a crowd straight from a painting by Renoir – men in straw boaters and morning coats, women in flowing dresses with bright flowers and velvet hats. Imagine, as the local guides say, “walking in the footsteps of Napoleon III, the Empress Eugénie, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), King Leopold II, or the Maharajah of Patiala…” In short, imagine yourself stepping back into the glory days of Belle Époque France – but in a place far from the chic salons of Paris.
Destination: La Sauvetat, a fortified town in the deep heart of France
People in France (and many other countries, too) are often described these days as being in a high state of anxiety about their physical security in the face of terrorism, crime, and escalating conflict. But try imagining a time when threats were so immediate that everything about your little town was built to ward off the danger. Today’s destination – La Sauvetat, a fortified village in the deep heart of France – transports you back to such a time in the long, violent history of the country. The villagers of La Sauvetat apparently came into their fears early, even before the town had a name. This is in one of the agricultural breadbaskets of France, only 12 miles (20 km) […]
Medieval Montpeyroux is a “Most Beautiful Village of France”
Sometimes I come across one of the “most beautiful villages in France” that apparently gets more points for the vistas it overlooks than for what it actually contains. Montpeyroux, for me, is one example.Not to say you shouldn’t visit – you should! It is a lovely, neatly-kept little town with its own rich history deep in the Auvergne. It’s easy to find, too; its prominent castle tower is visible to thousands of cars every day as they zip along the A7 (“La Méridienne), the major autoroute that connects Clermont-Ferrand to Béziers down on the Mediterranean coast. Within the city walls the first thing you’ll notice is how much lighter and brighter Monypeyroux looks compared to many other towns in the […]
UPDATE: Blaise Pascal – Towering Genius from the Deep Heart of France
The incredible thing about Blaise Pascal is… well, for me, almost everything. He was one of those extraordinary intellects who come along too rarely in history, but like Mozart, like Shelley and Keats, he died before he turned 40, leaving us to wonder what else he might have done if he’d lived longer. I first encountered him when, as a young professor of computer science, I was asked to teach a class on “Pascal”. In the 1980s it was a new, structured language for computer programming, a predecessor to some of the languages still used to write code.
8 Things We Love About Clermont-Ferrand
This week I’m missing my “second home”: Clermont-Ferrand, capital city of the Auvergne, one time capital of France for a day, and the largest city in the deep heart of France.We lived there for seven years (split between two different expat assignments), and I’ve spent several weeks there every year when we weren’t living there for the last 19 years. Why do I like this place so much? Here are my 8 favorite things about Clermont-Ferrand: Notre Dame du Port. This is the older of Clermont’s two main churches, and it is rich in history – Pope Urban II launched the first of the Crusades during a conference here in 1095. So although I’m not at all Catholic I love […]
Save Short Film If You Can! Clermont-Ferrand’s International Short Film Festival is Coming
Every winter, Clermont-Ferrand hosts “the second most important film festival in France” (after the well-known event in Cannes). This February will bring the 29th edition of the International Short Film Festival, showcasing works from filmmakers around the world in addition to two thematic programs on the art of short film in Colombia and works of “black humor”. The 29th annual International Short Film Festival and 39th National Short Film Festival will be held from February 3rd to February 11th, 2017. Ticket packages and information about hotels are available on the Festival’s website. Read more about this exceptional event in my article on FranceToday.com , one of the best online sources for information about travel and culture in France.
How Caesar Lost a Battle in the Deep Heart of France
The plateau at Gergovia isn’t necessarily the first thing you’d notice when you come to this area. The great volcanoes of the Massif Central rise in the background and they’re more rugged, more beautiful than this lump of basalt. Clermont-Ferrand lies at the plateau’s base, its brooding black lava cathedral dominating the city’s skyline.
PICTURE OF THE WEEK: Eglise Saint-Austremoine at Issoire
One of the greatest pleasures of living in the center of France, for us, was the Romanesque architecture we found everywhere in the region. This week’s picture features the Eglise Saint-Austremoine in Issoire — one of the five “major” basilicas in this style in the Auvergne. (The others are Notre Dame du Port in Clermont-Ferrand, the basilica of Notre Dame in Orcines, the beautiful little church in the “high” section of St Nectaire, and the church in St Saturnin.) Built around 1130 C.E., it’s named for the man who was Clermont’s first bishop back in the 3rd century C.E. And like all of these exquisite structures, the Eglise Saint-Austremoine is beautiful for the incredibly perfect order in the way the rows of […]
What Happened In This Medieval Church Echoes in Our Headlines Today
Note to all my readers: I’ve wrestled with whether or not to publish this post. It was written just BEFORE the horrible attack of July 26th in which Father Jacques Hamel was murdered and one of his parishioners gravely injured by two terrorists acting “in the name of ISIL” during services in the church at Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray. Then an extraordinary thing happened: On Sunday July 31st, in churches all across France — including the Cathedral of Notre Dame de l’Assomption in Clermont-Ferrand, just up the hill from the subject of this post — Muslims joined with Christian congregations to demonstrate solidarity and to express their rejection of terrorists. As one imam of a mosque in Vichy explained, “By our presence, we […]
The Puy de Dome – An Icon of Central France
Napoleon III came to Clermont-Ferrand in 1862, and everyone wanted to make a great impression. Why not take advantage of the great volcanic peaks that rise behind the city’s skyline and produce something spectacular for such a rare and important visitor? A great artificial eruption was organized at the top of the Puy de Dome, with 600 piles of wood and a one-ton mix of resin and oil. But when the great moment arrived…pffft. The “eruption” fizzled. The emperor and his wife were puzzled to see great clouds of black smoke roiling up from the mountain top instead.
