The Chateau de Lavoute-Polignac may not be an « essential » stop for tourists, but my visit there last summer was packed with interesting surprises.

What I value most in my travels around France are the experiences, sometimes surprising, sometimes peculiar, sometimes intensely pleasurable, that remind us there’s more to traveling than getting a generic selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower with thousands of other tourists.

In his remarkable book, Rediscovering Travel: A Guide for the Globally Curious, Seth Kugel talks about why getting away from the beaten path can be more rewarding than visiting well-known monuments.  And he focuses on how the people you encounter can turn a normal tourist experience into a richer, more memorable experience:

When I think back to any trip, the first image that pops into my head is never a canyon or a city skyline of a beach sunset.  It's a face. [...]  [M]eeting others -- especially those with extraordinarily different life experiences -- is a major factor in a successful trip.

Like Kugel, I’ve found that the experiences that mean the most to me are the product of seeing things in a way most tourists never get to see and the encounters with people I meet along the way, the visceral frisson that comes when buildings, people, and landscapes intertwine in one vibrant moment far from the usual sights. It’s why I love traveling so much around the back roads of central France.

I had such a moment at the Chateau de Lavoute-Polignac last summer.  Although I can’t necessarily recommend it as a destination unless you happen to be driving by on your way to someplace else, the tour I took there was absolutely like no other in my travels through this beautiful region in the Haute-Loire of central France.  The man I met there, and the tour that followed, were frustrating, seriously educational, and amusing, all at the same time – and therefore, an ‘experience’ that has stuck with me all these months later.

(Before you go, you should note that Lavoute-Polignac does not have its own website, and tours are conducted only in French.  You can find opening hours and general information on Le Puy’s tourism site but be sure to call ahead to make sure it’s open!)

The first part of the experience is actually getting to the chateau.  It’s only 18 minutes away from the medieval wonders at Le Puy-en-Velay, a couple of hours southeast of the Auvergnat capital of Clermont-Ferrand, but the road to get there is an ear-popping, stomach-churning, twisty route départemental.  The last quarter mile is strictly one lane.

The castle is situated in the Gorges of the Loire.  We’re very near here to the headwaters of that river, long before it flows past the mighty palaces of the Loire Valley on its way to the Atlantic.  (Here, they’re happy to point out that this is “the FIRST chateau on the Loire.”)   Like the chateau, several of the place names in this area bear the descriptive word “lavoute”, meaning a “buckle”, and you can see why on the map:  the river makes a tight loop around the land where the castle sits.

And that’s the first impression I had when I got out of the car: how loud the Loire is here, rushing hard over the rocks.  The sound comes from every direction and gives you the sense that this really is a kind of wilderness deep in the middle of the country.

A paper sign on the locked front gate said, “The chateau is open.  To visit, call the guide using your mobile phone at this number…”  The man who came to greet me at the gate ten minutes later was about 80 years old, elegant and quiet, so quiet that he was sometimes hard to hear as he related the history of his home.

His home?  Yes, because our guide for the day was Armand-Charles de Polignac, the 8^th Duke of Polignac, cousin to Prince Albert II of Monaco, hereditary Prince Pontifical of the Catholic Church, although he never mentioned any of these honors once at any time during our visit and no one in my group had any idea that’s who we were talking to.

In fact, I didn’t learn his real identity until later when I started doing background research for this post.  I found accounts from several other visitors who reported online that they had met “the duke himself” when they went to Lavoute-Polignac.  Then I found a photo of Prince Albert II’s visit to the Haute-Loire region to celebrate his family’s historic connections to the Polignac line in 2023…and there he was, standing next to the prince wearing the same green all-weather coat as on the day I met him.

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(I suppose I must have recognized at the time that something out of the ordinary was happening that day.  In my field notes from the trip, I recorded that “our guide speaks very softly in extremely educated, formal French, and has an extraordinarily encyclopedic knowledge of the Polignac family and their chateau”.  Now I understand why!  His family has been living on this site for over 1,000 years!)

In any event, when he answered my call last summer, the duke ushered me up the path to the front door.  A French couple was waiting patiently in the second room of the tour for him to return; he collected my entrance fee in a little kitchenette by the door and handed me a six-page (single-spaced) typewritten history of the Polignac family and the Chateau, telling me to be sure to return it before I left.

Before he could resume the tour with the three of us already in the house, his cell phone rang again.  He offered a quiet excuse, invited the guests already present to “have a look around”, and trudged back down to the gate to collect another couple who had just arrived.

This happened twice more while our ‘tour’ was underway; at the end, there were eleven of us visitors, and some of the others who had come in earlier began grumbling about the constant interruptions and the long waits to resume the presentation of the rooms.  And all of us were evidently put off by our guide’s habit of speaking directly to the paintings and pieces of furniture on the tour, rather than addressing himself to his guests.

To be brutally honest, the house itself might disappoint most casual tourists.  Its decline is evident in almost every room; it is unrestored, dark, and cold, with bare wooden floors, wallpaper that is brown and peeling, and drapes that have been ravaged by moths over the years.  In most cases, the furniture is simple and generic, something you might see in any manor house in this part of France.  It does tell a story about how hard it must be to maintain a place this old (construction started in the 10^th century C.E.), but there must be something more to capture the imagination of visitors.

The real interest, then, in visiting the Chateau de Lavoute-Polignac lies in the paintings on the walls, the family tree mounted above the staircase, and in some spectacularly historic artifacts on display throughout the house – all the things that tell the story of this remarkable family and its outsized impact on French history.

It’s not possible in a post like this to recount the whole history of the Polignac family and the thousand-year succession of dukes, viscounts, marquises, and princes who populate the family tree.  Family tradition says the history may even be connected to Gallo-Roman royalty; what is not in dispute is the long connection between Polignacs and French kings.  Here are a couple of historical moments that are most prominently featured when you visit the chateau today:

• Cardnial Melchior de Polignac was born here in the “Cardinal’s bedroom” in 1661. Famous as a philosopher, a poet, and a scientist, he was a close confidant of King Louis XIV (“the Sun King”), who named him Ambassador to Poland and later sent him to lead the negotiation of the famous Treaty of Utrecht, which brought an end to the War of Spanish Succession.

• When you visit here, you can see a handwritten farewell note from Marie Antoinette addressed to her best friend, Yolande de Polastron, Duchess of Polignac (usually known as “Gabrielle”). Gabrielle was considered “the undisputed leader of the queen's exclusive circle,” and she eventually became the Governess to Marie Antoinette’s children – an honor which entitled her to an enormous 13-room apartment at Versailles.  Her connection to Marie-Antoinette led to her husband being named the first Duke of Polignac; her son Jules became the third Duke and was Prime Minister of France in 1829.

That letter, among the last words written by the condemned queen, is an incredibly poignant – and historically important – relic, and there’s no way to see it unless you make the trip down that stomach-churning “D” road and wait at the gate for the duke to come find you.

At the top of the grand “Staircase of Honor,” there’s a family tree that tells the whole Polignac family story.  The first entry is dated 860 C.E.; it covers 40 generations spanning almost 12 centuries.  The walls are covered with portraits donated by generation after generation of French kings.  This is truly the story of a family that arose from an obscure corner of central France to some of the highest positions of honor and responsibility on the European continent.  Their home in Paris until 1907 was the building that now houses the fabulous 5-star Hotel Crillon.  A branch of the family still sits on the throne of Monaco.

Back in the Haute-Loire, the future of the Chateau de Lavoute-Polignac is less clear.  The current duke was married only briefly and has no children to inherit his estate; his cousin’s son Ludovic is next in the line of succession.

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In Rediscovering Travel, Seth Kugel lists several of the most common feelings that make us want to explore other parts of the world.  Some of them are not so noble: “to boost our social standing”, “to check boxes”, or “to feel superior”.  For me, though, some of the other motivations he cites speak directly to why I travel and why I write this blog: “to figure out the world”, to be immersed in “authentic experiences”, “to find connections”, and “to make memories”.  The afternoon I spent in Lavoute-Polignac last summer, letting myself get a little aggravated by someone who turned out to be a living link to 12 centuries of French history, absolutely fits my idea of a great travel experience!

Have you experienced a memorable moment somewhere “off the beaten path” in your travels around France?  Is there a particular place or event that lives in your memory because of what happened during your visit?  Please share your experience in the comments section below – and while you’re here, I’d be grateful if you would take a moment to share this story with someone else who might appreciate the people, places, history, and culture of “the deep heart of France”.

Unless otherwise noted, all photos in this post are copyright © 2025 by Richard Alexander