A while ago, 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’”. […]
Most Beautiful Villages of France: Tournemire and the Chateau d’Anjony
Although I usually prefer to visit these places at my own pace, many of the small chateaux in the deep heart of France require you to take a guided tour. They’re proud of their history (most of which is never reported in mainstream books); they often have original furniture and family heirlooms to protect from curious visitors; and (I suspect) they want to give their caretakers an opportunity to make a little extra income from gratuities and gift-shop sales. In any case, it wasn’t surprising that the only way to visit the Chateau d’Anjony in Tournemire – one of France’s official “most beautiful villages” — is in the company of a guide. And what a guide! Monsieur Martin took more […]
Market Day in Sarlat-le-Canèda
Someday I’ll write about why it’s a great idea to visit Sarlat-le-Caneda, the perfectly-preserved medieval town in the heart of the Périgord Noir in the Dordogne. It’s one of France’s most popular tourist destinations (last time I was there I heard more British accents than French!), and within 30 minutes of some of France’s most interesting historical sites – great castles, prehistoric cave painting, troglodytic homes. It’s also a perfect base for cycling, canoeing, hiking, or any other outdoor activity that appeals to you along the ancient Dordogne River. In every way that matters to a traveler, Sarlat earns the rare 3-star rating that it holds in the Michelin Green Guide. Today, though, I want to talk about the town’s […]
6 Best Places I Saw in the Deep Heart of France This Year
I’ll confess that 2017 was not my favorite year for many reasons that have nothing to do with a blog about traveling around the deep heart of France. In fact, if it weren’t for the places I saw and the people met in my travels, I think it would have been easy to be miserable under the weight of the world’s problems in 2017! For this round-up, I’ve enjoyed walking back through my memories of some of the best, most interesting places I saw this year. These don’t necessarily represent most popular posts for 2017 — just my personal selection of the stories and places I’d like most to revisit in the months ahead. This may seem like a sneaky […]
Vic-sur-Cère is a taste of royal history in the deep heart of France
Vic-sur-Cère is a good example of the places I find most interesting as I travel around the deep heart of France. It’s not on the official list of France’s “most beautiful villages” – although it probably could be, if residents made the effort. It’s not a tourist mecca during the August vacations, although it gets a 1-star recommendation in the Michelin Green Guide for the region. It’s the kind of place that, when you do a search for “things to do in Vic-sur-Cère”, you get a list of all the nearby towns where there really are “things to do.” In fact, this little village appears to live quietly with its rich history, proud of the role it played in the […]
How the deep heart of France came to Paris
As the debate over immigration rages across the front pages of newspapers and in the nightly TV talk shows across France, it’s easy to forget that modern France – our concept of Paris and the country it represents – is itself less than 250 years old. It’s easy to forget, too, that what we think of as “France” today was built in large part by massive waves of internal migration. And one of the largest of all these “immigrant” populations…came to Paris from the Auvergne, in the Deep Heart of France!
La Roque Gageac is officially one of France’s “Most Beautiful Villages”
La Roque Gageac stretches out in a straight line along the banks of the Dordogne – an easy walk of 30 minutes will get you from one end of town to the other. But this is officially one of France’s “most beautiful villages”, and if you walk past too quickly you’ll miss some of the rich history and outdoor sports opportunities this place affords. For this week’s visit, we’re in the Dordogne (the Perigord Noir, to be more precise), one of France’s most popular tourist regions. La Roque Gageac is only 6 miles from Sarlat-le-Caneda, a very short drive from two other “most beautiful villages” (Beynac-et-Cazenac and Castelnaud-la-Chapelle) and the extraordinary exotic gardens at Marqueyssac. (You can see a spectacular […]
Comfort Food – Recipes from the Deep Heart of France
For me, the idea of “comfort food” evokes memories of cold, black winter nights when you huddle up with a good book and warm your hands around a bowl of Mom’s homemade macaroni and cheese. For Karen, it’s the steaming kettle of chicken and dumplings in her mother’s kitchen as the family gathered on a Sunday afternoon. You might think of your grandmother’s cookies, still soft as they come from the oven, or your dad’s own recipe for stuffed jalapenos. In the deep heart of France, though, it might mean something else altogether. I’ve been surprised when I ask my French friends about their favorite comfort food to find that the concept doesn’t exactly translate well for most of them. […]
How the Electric Company Became the Owner of a Castle – the Chateau de Val
Most of the stories of great castles in France hinge on the actions of knights and noble families. I just visited a place, though, where the key moment depended on the actions of … the Electric Company? That’s the great irony in the history of the Chateau de Val: It was only a hair’s breadth away from disappearing forever at the bottom of a lake – and frankly it might not have been seriously missed. But the waters stopped just short of the castle’s walls, and gave it a romantic setting that turned this minor château in the Auvergne into a serious attraction for tourists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfe5HwSx4qw
Check out these 100-year-old Postcards from the Deep Heart of France
French people have plenty of ways to get rid of their old junk. Almost every little village organizes an annual vide grenier (“empty the attic”) sale, every town of any size has at least one brocante (second-hand) store, and flea markets (marchés aux puces) pop up somewhere every week of the year. And I, for one, am a happy consumer of what they have to sell. One of my favorite ways to spend an afternoon is combing through one of these sales, looking for an unusual wine carafe or an old print that could be salvaged from a broken frame. But one of my favorite “finds” is a box of old postcards. For me, these images are a window into […]
La Garde Guérin is officially one of France’s “Most Beautiful Villages”
It’s no secret that I think some of the places on France’s official list of “Most Beautiful Villages” are not necessarily “most beautiful”. In the case of La Garde Guérin, though… I knew right away that it was the real thing. The combination of a rich medieval history and a spectacular natural setting in the Gorges of Chassezac make this a great day trip from Le Puy en Velay. “La Garde” means “fortress” or fortified tower, and Guérin is an old family name in parts of France. Why did they need a fortress here in such an isolated corner of the country? Because this was a crossroads on an ancient path, once used for the annual process of “transhumance” (moving […]
There’s a Huge Surprise Behind this Medieval Façade in Brantôme
Our coverage of the ‘deep heart of France’ has expanded to include parts of the region known (since the consolidation of 2016) as Nouvelle Aquitaine. This recent agglomeration is the largest of the new administrative regions of France, so we’ll confine our attention just to the eastern parts – those that are still called the Limousin and the Dordogne by old-timers like me! Even as the real city of Venice looks for ways to reduce the throngs of visitors who come every year, tourist boards everywhere else seem anxious to declare their locales to be “the Venice of” wherever they happen to be. In addition to the beach in California, for example, Aveiro’s canals make it “the Venice of Portugal,” […]
