Though the trip I’m describing took place eight years ago, I can still clearly see in my mind Aubrac’s rippling empty pastures covered with the greenish-brown grass of early spring. But I remember Aubrac more as a state of mind than an actual place on the map. In fact, if I were to look at a unlined map of the territory of France, I might not be able to find Aubrac at all. Those who dressed the map with administrative lines might not have situated it very well either since the plateau overlaps three departments—Cantal, Aveyron and Lozère—and two regions—Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes and Occitania.

No sooner had I left Chaudes-Aigues then I felt as though I’d gone as deep into France as I’d ever been. It wasn’t wilderness deep—the landscape was largely comprised of parceled, pastoral fields. It wasn’t intimidating deep—the rippling topography gave me a sense of airy calm. It wasn’t mysterious deep—I could easily read the architecture of the land. Yet it felt removed, beyond and other-worldly.

It was also deep in silence. I drove by isolated homes and farm buildings, but there was no one about, and only a few small groupings of Aubrac cattle here and there. I stopped the car, got out and listened. Silence, as they say, can be deafening. But not here. In this silence, in this depth of my travel within France, there was plenitude.

Plenitude. It’s something that I’d been feeling at times throughout my five-day drive-about. Were I to look at my photos of the Aubrac Plateau without knowing where they were taken nor that I was the photographer, I might see isolation or emptiness. But at that moment I felt that I’d arrived at a privileged place. Or should I say, in that place, I felt that I’d arrived at a privileged moment? Was this feeling of plenitude due to the place, my movement through it or simply me? That’s a question that a traveler should never ask himself? For the answer is necessarily all three, and to want to measure them separately is to doubt one’s own happiness. It’s what I’d been unable to put my finger on in Mont Dore. It’s what I’d wanted to tell Yu. That there are moments on the road when nothing looks extraordinary yet everything feels right—in this place, with this movement, within yourself.

I got back into the car and drove across the rippling pastures of the plateau that wave between 1000 and 1400 meters (3280 and 4590 feet) above sea level. The pastures, as I said, were greenish-brown. At spots in the distance I could see woods. Briefly, the Bes River flowed near the road before the road veered off. It was late March, the only season, if I can call it that, of Aubrac that I know. I’d come after the wind and snow of winter that I’d read about and before the greening of the rich grazing fields of summer that I’d seen in pictures. Other than the small groups of cattle that I occasionally passed, the herds of Aubrac cattle had yet to make their late-spring transhumance or to emerge from the barns.

I was happy to be traveling alone, and I was glad to be meeting up with someone.

Yu, I’ve been wondering about something. It’s not a question; I don’t expect an answer. After leaving Paris, where you lived two years, shortly after your 23rd birthday, you traveled much over the following year: North America, Europe, Asia. Something had changed since you left Paris. On your blog, you no longer wrote what “I” did or “I” saw, but what “we” did and saw. “We,” “us,” “our.” You’d give the reader a rare side glimpse of a young man, but never more than that. He’s never mentioned by himself. It was always “we.” I like that, Yu. I like to think that you had a travel companion and I like the mystery of not knowing anything more about him or about your relationship, simply that you were enjoying someone’s company, as a traveler should, sometimes. As I would that evening when I met Fred.

Saint Ursize and Fred “Remise”

I didn’t learn much about Fred’s background during the time that we spent together that evening and the next morning. Or, if I did, I don’t remember since, as I’ve said, this was eight years ago. I think of him now as a man who’d moved from the city to the frontier and had no intention of going back. Aubrac isn’t frontier, of course, yet it does seem to be on the fringe of something. I didn’t even learn Fred’s last name. I’d been told to call on a certain Fred Remise while in Saint-Urcize, but Remise was in fact the family name of his wife, Isabelle, née Remise, whom I didn’t meet during my stay.

Fred and I had dinner at Chez Remise, the restaurant that has been in Isabelle’s family since 1906. Chez Remise is also an inexpensive 10-room hotel, but it’s primarily a restaurant with rooms to let rather than a hotel with a restaurant. Fishing rods, other fishing paraphernalia and fishing photos decorate the dining room. There may have been fishing on Isabelle’s side of the family, but Fred is the fisherman of renown in this area and well beyond. Among his many work-hobbies, he takes clients out fly fishing for trout at his favorite spots in the Bès River and the creeks of Aubrac. The Bès River cuts south-north through much of the plateau and serves as the border between Cantal, the part that I was in, and Lozère to the east.

Fred is both a character and a storyteller. Even the simplest of stories that he told was spoken in the voice or with the wink of a tall tale. We shared a dinner of gizzard salad, pulled lamb, green beans and a tasty regional calorie-bomb called aligot, made of mashed potatoes, fresh cantal cheese, cream and garlic, followed by lemon pie. Even the way Fred pronounced marcillac, as he poured the wine, made it sound like a yarn. Marcillac is a red wine made mostly the mansois grape varietal and grown just west of the plateau. We clinked glasses and took a chug. I looked Fred in the eye waiting for him to say it first, until finally I remarked that it smelled like manure. It was an assessment that he neither confirmed nor denied other than to say that we had a full bottle to finish. Which we proceeded to do. The wine got no better over time, but his stories did, and by the time the lemon pie arrived I was wading with him into the river to cast out alongside a wealthy industrialist who’d flown in on a private jet to go fly fishing with him.

Fred and Isabelle also run a B&B called La Fontaine de Grégoire. Mostly Fred’s domain, it appeared to me. Fred had restored the home of a local bigwig built in 1788. It was entirely in his image: warm, welcoming and refined in a devil-may-care way. Pastoral luxury, was how I saw it and lived it as a pre-season guest for the night. Some of its five bedrooms might be considered romantic for a couple who like fine flea market finds, but there’s no mistaking the 3250-foot-square attic lounge for anything other than an incredible upstairs man-cave, though I could also well imagine it being used as an opium den. I’m not a fisherman myself, but it would seem to me that between Fred’s engaging bonhomie, his fly-fishing knowledge, his luxury B&B with the man-cave in the attic, and the restaurant Chez Remise, a group of story-swapping fly-fishing buddies could spend a memorable few days under Fred’s guidance.

Saint Urcize is at the center of the sparsely populated 500-square-mile Aubrac Plateau. At the time of my visit, the population of Saint Urcize (including the village itself, 12 nearby hamlets and forty-some farms) was wavering at around 500. 501, was the official figure. As Fred explained, “A village doesn’t exist if it has less than 500, so the local census people the village fudge the numbers.” Apparently, the numbers are no longer fudgeable since the official figure eight years later is closer to 400. (Population may have been as high as 2000 in the 17th and 18th centuries.) I assume that Saint Urcize continues to exist nonetheless. I only stayed one night, but even in an off-season the village was very much alive, with its café-restaurant-hotel Chez Remise, a grocer, a butcher and a baker.

In the morning Fred took me on a tour of the village. There are more than 50 shades of grey to the granite walls and the slate and shale rooftops of Saint-Urcize.

As is to be expected, its main architectural sight is its church. It’s dedicated to Saints Peter and Michael and houses relics of Urcize, bishop of Cahors. The village once stood along the Way of Saint James, the pilgrimage route to Compostela, Spain, thus contributing to its development. Construction was launched in the 11th century, yet the church can largely be seen as the combination of a Romanesque choir from the 12th century and a Gothic nave from the 14th, to which a wall belfry was added in the late 16th century. The church also houses what legend holds to be the chalice from which Louis XVI last drank when taking communion on the morning of Jan. 21, 1793, before being led to the guillotine. The belfry rises just above the village rooftops. At night the village is silent other than the hourly ringing of the church bell.

Fred and I then took a drive across the plateau to the edge of Auvergne, where we got out of the car to overlook the steeple and rooftops of Laguiole in the near distance. Laguiole, of knife-making fame, is the largest town on the plateau, with 1250 inhabitants. But Auvergne was my sole destination for this trip, so it wouldn’t have felt right to step over into Occitania. We passed a forest of beech and pine along the way, but mostly we drove alongside cattleless pastureland dotted here and there with stone huts called burons, where herders used to store cheese during the transhumance, the movement of livestock between mountain and lowland.

Aubrac continues to celebrate that most ancient tradition of cattle-raisers on the Sunday following May 25, when the barns and stables around the base of the plateau have emptied and the pastures of the Aubrac Plateau fill.

As we drove, Fred told stories of life on the plateau. I don’t remember any of them. But Fred’s weren’t stories to be remembered, rather to be enjoyed at the moment, like fish caught with pride then thrown back into the river, before casting out anew.

© 2020, Gary Lee Kraut

The Aubrac Plateau is a National Regional Park. At its center, the village of Aubrac houses La Maison d’Aubrac, which provides information about the plateau, including tourist information and where to find it throughout the area. In winter, Aubrac had cross-country and easy-going alpine skiing if snowfall is sufficient. In summer, bikes, including electric fat bikes, can be rented to sport along the rippling landscape. Saint Urcize holds a village festival on the Sunday after August 15. In September, as the days shorten and the evenings cool, the forests echo with of the rutting calls of stags in September. The transhumance is celebrated on the Sunday after May 25. Near the summer solstice it celebrates the Night of the Burons in June with music, song and cheese.

La Fontaine de Grégoire, Fred’s B&B. 15110 St Urcize. Tel. 04 71 23 20 02 or 04 71 23 20 69.
Chez Remise, the village’s premier restaurant for local fare and atmosphere as well as a modest 10-room hotel. Place de la Frique, 15110 Saint-Urcize. Tel. 04 71 23 20 02.
Information about other gites and B&Bs in and outside of Saint Urcize can be found on the village’s official website, which also provides information about events.

This is the end of the 6-part series Five Days in Auvergne. To return to the previous parts:
Part I: From Paris to Clermont-Ferrand
Part II: An Introduction to Spa Towns and Hot Springs By Way of Royat
Part III: Chatel-Guyon
Part IV: Château La Canière, a Luxury Hotel
Part V: Mont Dore, Saint Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues and Yu

The post 5 Days in Auvergne, Part VI: Plenitude on the Aubrac Plateau appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Yu Jia’s message both embarrassed and pleased me. It pleased me because she said that she enjoyed my writing. It further pleased me that she was interested enough to want more, particularly the more that I’d promised at the end of Part IV. “Part V: Mont Dore, Saint Nectaire and Chaudes-Aigues will be posted later in May,” I’d noted as a teaser.

Mostly, though, I was embarrassed. I hadn’t kept my promise, I’d given up, and Yu Jia was reminding me of that. I don’t remember giving up—one rarely does—but no doubt my inspiration had waned and as it did I let something distract me from the long-winded project of a 6-part series. Afterwards, I thought it occasionally, but only in passing, without the will or the inspiration to complete Parts V and VI.

Scrapbooks
Trip reports such as this Auvergne series are like scrapbooks. You sit down with pieces that you’ve collected from your recent travels—notes, photographs, audio, press kits, brochures, books—then stitch together the highlights and a few mid- and low-lights with observations, impressions, transitions and additional research. Chronology is an easy organizer. Furthermore, most of the steps of my 5-day 2012 Auvergne trip were planned in advance. I prepared and published the texts for the first four parts at a rhythm of one per week.

But some scrapbooks (and articles) don’t get finished. The scraps never get booked, so to speak; they remain in folders and the audio gets thrown out with an old computer. I’ll finish it one of these days, you say to yourself whenever you come across the folder or whenever someone mentions the place you’ve been.

Within two months after completing Part IV, I’d written articles about Kaysersberg, Colmar, Chambéry, Blois, Chateau-Thierry, a restaurant in Paris and a WWI memorial in the suburbs. I traveled; folders accumulated. And the chances of “one of these days” putting together the remaining Auvergne scraps became increasingly slim.

8 years on
It’s now April 2020, the spring of Covid-19 lockdown. That Auvergne trip was eight years ago. I’ve only been back to Auvergne once since then but nowhere near the area covered in this series. In a sense, Auvergne no longer exists. Since 2016, the official map of France has contained 13 regions rather than the 22 at the time of my visit. Auvergne has merged with the Rhône-Alpes region to become Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Actually, I’ve visited Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes once or twice a year since 2012, so I could fudge the facts by saying that I’ve returned to region of this series many times in the past eight years. But in all honesty I can’t. Administrative region or not, Auvergne is Auvergne, everyone knows that. The parts covered in this series have nothing to do with the Rhone or the Alps. So, no, I haven’t been to Auvergne since March 2012.

Why, then, return to this Auvergne series now?

Because in cleaning out and updating some articles on France Revisited during lockdown, I came across Yu Jia’s message. I had never “approved” it (i.e. allowed it to be made public on the site) when she wrote it in the comments section beneath Part IV. Yet I hadn’t trashed it either. Nor had I hidden my tracks by deleting the announcement in May 2012 that parts V and VI would be coming soon. For 7½ years Yu Jia’s message awaited in the limbo of the dashboard of this site, staring me down as a comment awaiting action: approve, trash or spam. It stared me down again a few days ago—”Too bad parts V and VI aren’t up, I did want to read about Mont Dore and St. Nectaire in particular”—a reminder that I still I owed Yu something. So I “approved” the message as a dare to myself to complete the series during coronavirus quarantine and began stitching and pasting together scraps and memories from my Auvergne trip of 2012.

It wouldn’t make sense to pretend now that this follows the momentum of the first four parts of the series. I’ll therefore leave the scraps in italics and place other facts, impressions, memories and comments in roman.

This is for Yu.

Mont Dore

Three types of hot springs. Living, dead, hot.

Either my guide in Mont Dore (aka Le Mont Dore) said that or that was a summary of what I’d learned about hot springs over the three days in Auvergne leading up to Mont Dore. Either way, if there are indeed three types, I don’t recall the distinction between living and hot, and I prefer the mystery of not knowing.

I’m more intrigued by another mystery: Why would you, Yu, a young woman from Singapore, still in her twenties, want to read “in particular” about Mont Dore. I can fathom an interest in Saint Nectaire—there’s the cheese and the Romanesque church. But why Mont Dore? Who’s even heard of Mont Dore, remote and bygone as it is? (Not to be confused with Mont d’Or, the fabulous and fattening runny cow cheese from the Jura region of eastern France.)

Sight of the slate roofs while approaching the hills. Le Mont Dore, at an altitude of 1000 meters. The ski slopes are 3 miles from town. The town feels unused/underused. Tourist official explains: “We’re between seasons,” nevertheless “Declining population, a town that lives from tourism and curists.”

I don’t recall the slate roofs, though I do see them in my photos. I do remember winding through hills and valleys on my way to Mont Dore from where I’d stayed the previous night near Chatel-Guyon. I remember some splendid inter-seasonal views of a choppy landscape and of lakes and hills appearing around bends or through pines. I remember above all the unused/underused feel of Mont Dore when I arrived. I remember that it brought the pleasant sense of having arrived at an oasis.

What’s especially stayed with me about Mont Dore is the thought that I’d like to settle here, or someplace like here, for a month and read and write and walk and get familiar with strangers, if they’ll let me and make the place mine for a bit. Do you ever feel that when you travel, Yu? Stopping someplace for just a few hours, do you ever think: I wonder what it would be like to settle down for a few weeks to “live” the town and explore the immediate surroundings on foot, never with transportation? Though “settle down” is the wrong term for the momentary attraction that I had for Mont Dore. “Shelter in place,” as we say today, would be more like it, within the confines not of a house or an apartment but of the entire town of Mont Dore and its surrounding landscape. You wouldn’t be there to escape anything, you’d be there… well, you’d just be there, between seasons. Then you’d want leave before too many tourists and curists arrived and transformed your quiet town. Not that you would actually ever shelter in place there. Not that you’d ever return to the place after that first visit and the original impression. But do you know what I mean?

The source of the Dordogne River is just above Mont Dore. Snow-capped massif visible from town. Situated along the Roman road from Clermont-Ferrand. Vestiges of Gallo-Roman thermal baths. The current thermal baths opened in 1823, with later additions and mosaics, including a portion from 1920. The casino burned down in 1962. Eight springs, 38-44 degrees, are now used particularly for rheumatology and respiratory illnesses. During WWI, gassed soldiers brought here from the front. Hot springs exploited since about 2000 by the Chaine Thermal de Soleil, which operates 20 establishments in France. Not always water therapy, sometimes vapors are used for nasal baths and injections. The nasal infiltration room; glass canopy by Gustave Eiffel; original wall mosaics from the 1930s. No noise or movement to distract the eye as it takes in the basilica-like space of the neo-Byzantine architecture, recently restored, light from the glass black of the barrel ceiling. Villas and grand hotels. Between seasons.

I don’t remember the villas, the grand hotels or whatever building replaced the casino. But the dramatic, archaic emptiness of the hot springs complex between seasons—go for that, Yu. Between seasons.

The Dordogne and Dore Rivers meet at the foot of Sancy Mountain as the Dordogne River begins on its course southwestward before turning due west about 90 miles from here to form what most people think of when they think of the Dordogne Valley.

I’ve just looked up the population of Mont Dore. It’s been in continual decline since 1982 when there were over 2300 inhabitant. In 2019 there were 1300. How sad, an exodus, people leaving parent and relatives, unrooting themselves. Or hopeful, but with something diminished left behind. I wish them well. Let’s move on to Saint Nectaire before this trip report becomes an elegy.

Saint Nectaire

Another beautiful drive. Though I left Clermont-Ferrand three days ago on this meandering itinerary, I look at the map to see that I’m still less than an hour’s direct drive from my point of departure. Questions of near and far.

What questions? I was preparing a trip report, not an essay on distance. Sometimes one writes cryptic notes to oneself, don’t you find? With corona lockdown, everything that isn’t near seems far. I might have thought about those “questions” because Saint Nectaire also felt empty when I arrived, or because the feeling of Mont Dore was still with me when I arrived at Saint Nectaire and checked into the hotel Mercure.

But the feeling evaporated during lunch.

By contrast with the emptiness of the hotel, the busyness of the brasserie Les Baladins is a sign of a living town. I had a hearty St. Nectaire fondue for lunch. Population 728.

Lunch was more than hearty. My photo reminds me that it was absolutely and appetizingly local and delectable, the kind of meal and the kind of place where the hungry traveler says: This is good living, despite what the ingredients whisper about heart disease. (Like the pancakes, bacon and eggs on the table of the post you wrote about celebrating your 23rd birthday in Paris. But thinking about heart disease when you’re 23 is a personal crime.) To judge from the photo, I was not alone for lunch. (Neither were you for your birthday, to judge by yours.)

Saint Nectaire once had 25 hotels serving “curists” coming for ailments related to rheumatism and urinary problems. Once the cure season was over, employees would leave town to find work elsewhere, e.g. Clermont. The thermal baths closed their doors in 2004. Currently, four hotels are in operation. I’m staying in one of them. It’s nearly empty. Remnants of the 19th-century thermal baths can be seen at the Hotel Les Bains Romanes and at the Tourist Office.

Unlike other spa towns whose reputation has faded with a diminished interest in taking a cure, the name Saint Nectaire is still well-known in France because of the cheese of the same name that’s produced here and in the 69 surrounding communes. Plus, while thermalism is dead at St. Nectaire, for church hunters this is one of the prizes of central France.

A prize indeed!

You know all those great soaring Gothic cathedrals and churches of Paris and its surrounding regions, Yu? Of course you do. I saw the picture that you took from the towers of Notre-Dame on your birthday. An impressive cathedral; an impressive view. Sometimes, however, those Notre-Dames of northern France seem to me to be trying too hard compared with the ease of the rounded arches and the effortless proportions of the Romanesque period—at Saint Nectaire, for example—that proceeded the extensive use of the ribbed vaults and the pointed arches at those Notre-Dames.

On a promontory overlooking the valley (and the lower town), exquisite proportions, an impassive western façade through which one enters to the shadows of the narthex and the light of the choir illuminating the whitewashed stone and the polychrome capitals. Storytelling capitals.

Were those scrap words mine or those of the excellent guide who steered me around and through the edifice? Or were they the words of her source? Doesn’t matter: I could see it, I could feel it, from near and from far, a vast and harmonious church in such a remote area. Worth the detour, as they say in the guides.

A lengthy and thorough restoration 2002-2009.

Legend has it that Saint Nectaire, a Greek who encountered Christians in Rome then came to evangelize in this area, early 4th century, created an oratory here. Saint Nectaire said to be accompanied by Saint Auditeur and Saint Baudime. Rebuilt by Benedictine monks in the 12th century. Made with lava stone. Red, beige, blue?, grey. Belonged to the monks of La Chaise Dieu until the Revolution. A pilgrimage church, one of the 5 major Romanesque churches of Auvergne.

The question mark that follows “blue” is enough to make me want to go back to examine my doubt.

While I’d elected to focus my 5-day itinerary in Auvergne on spa towns, I can well imagine the parallel interest of an itinerary that aims for those five major Romanesque churches: Saint Nectaire, Notre-Dame in Saint-Saturnin, Saint-Austremoine in Issoire, Notre-Dame-du Port in Clermont-Ferrand, Notre-Dame Basilica in Orcival. I kept the brochure.

The treasure of Saint Nectaire is a 12th-century bust of St. Baudime, a wood sculpture covered with gilded copper. See also the Virgin and Child in the choir.

I had an appointment with Mayor Alphonse Bellonte outside the church at the end of the visit. As I write this, between the two rounds of municipal elections, Alfonse Bellonte is still mayor of Saint Nectaire.

The natural, warm welcome of this big fellow has undoubtedly contributed to my favorable view of Saint Nectaire from that day. He didn’t start, as most mayors do, by telling me anything about his town but rather about how much he’d enjoyed visiting Cleveland and Baltimore several months prior to my visit. The trip had been an extraordinary journey of discovery for him, one that he wanted to share me, an American. But Cleveland and Baltimore? Yes, he’d followed Saint Baudime on tour to those cities, and during that visit he’d marveled at the generous welcome that he’d received from his hosts.

Alphonse Bellonte is also a producer of saint nectaire fermier. Fermier (farmhouse, we would say) indicates that it uses raw milk from a single farm. Saint nectaire fermier is one of the kings of France’s farmhouse cow cheeses. Industrial saint nectaire also exists; the milk used for that can come from more than one farm and be pasteurized. The farmhouse version is tastier.

I visited the mayor’s farm, Ferme Bellonte. (Other farms in the area can also be visited.) The Bellonte family has been in the cheese business for eight generations in Saint Nectaire, and for several generations elsewhere prior to that. Ferme Bellonte is open to the public (free and daily, year-round). The farm’s 110 cows, primarily a breed called montéliarde, are milked twice each day, 7-8am and 4:15-5:15pm, followed by the cheese making 9-10am and 6-7pm, so time your visit according to your interest, Yu, or stay long enough for both. I did. (Times indicated are Daylight Saving Time, so an hour earlier in winter.)

Each cow here produces more or less about 15 liters of milk per day. 15 liters of milk for 1 round of cheese. So the farm makes about 100 saint nectaires per day. 8 days in the refrigerator then 5 weeks of cellar maturing on straw mats. Aging cellars here are 1000-year-old troglodyte quarry rooms, formerly inhabited by people and/or farm animals, which can also be visited. Summer farmhouse saint nectaire is softer and tastier.

I bought some saint nectaire fermier for lunch today. The rind, I now see, echoes the color of the exterior of the church: Red, beige, grey. Blue? I can smell (or imagine that I smell) the humid cellar and the straw on which it’s aged, though the taste of this semi-hard cheese is mild.

In addition to the spa town route and the Romanesque church route, Yu, you might also melt into the itinerary the AOP Auvergne cheese route (AOP=PAO, Protected Appellation of Origin): saint nectaire, cantal (semi-hard, pressed, raw or pasteurized, typically aged up to 6 months), salers (raw milk, pressed, aged up to 9 months), fourme d’Ambert (a mild blue) and bleu d’Auvergne (a creamy blue), all from cow’s milk.

By the way, Yu, due to the coronavirus crisis, farmers, industry and authorities have to deal with the excess amount of milk being produced in view of decreased consumption. (My Paris cheese tastings have been halted!) So the strict rules of producing an AOP saint nectaire have been modified to allow for newly cultured cheese to be frozen in anticipation of aging and sale next year. Production and storage times have also been modified slightly for blue d’Auvergne and fourme d’Ambert, as well for some cheeses produced elsewhere in France.

In the morning, breaking from the two-hour drive to Chaudes Aigues, a quick stop in the town of Issoire to visit St. Austremoine Church, the largest of the five Romanesque majors. A visual feast of its extravagant and jubilant painted columns and walls.

While the columns do indeed seem to be “extravagant and jubilant” when I look at my pictures of the interior, I must have been in an upbeat mood to jot down those words. It must have been one of those “Wow, I’m glad I stopped here!” road-trip moments before getting back into the car.

Chaudes-Aigues

The problem with scraps, Yu, and in particular my written scraps from Chaudes-Aigues, is that they amount to no more than wikifacts without footnotes. Absent some evidence that I had actually been there to “experience” the place (I put experience in quotes because what does that mean, really?), you might be tempted to skip this section. After all, your message said that you were particularly interested in Mont Dore and Saint Nectaire—not a word about Chaudes-Aigues. How then to get you to scroll beyond the fact bites?

Chaudes = hot, Aigues = eaux. The town’s inhabitants are called caldagaises.
The various springs emerge at 52-82 degrees Celsius [126-180°F ]. The 82° springs are the hottest in Europe. The village exists since about 1332, date of the construction of the first houses. We’re at 750 meters [2460 feet] in altitude. Population about 900, 3000 in summer. 1500 curists during the April-November cure season. The water at the thermal baths is 52 degrees. The water comes from 5000 meters underground. Each quarter of the village has a patron saint.

Among the 32 springs, the majority of which are private, some provide heat in winter on the ground floor of houses, about 20 of them. Those whose homes are heated with the hot spring pay only an annual maintenance fee of 30-100€, depending on the length of the piping network and the temperature. Pipes get clogged with deposit; they need to be cleaned often, eventually replaced. The church is heated this way as is the municipal swimming pool. The springs also feed the thermal baths (expanded in 2004), the fountain (where I boiled my egg) and the lavoir (publish wash basin), which is still used and where the water, which contains sodium bicarbonate, is good for bleaching.

Before 2004, about three-quarters of homes were heated by the spring called Source du Par. Since then, three-quarters of the flow is used by the thermal center and for the swimming the pool from June to September (through a spring water serpentine) + to heat the church (to 20-25°C/68-77°F) + to boil my egg. The little Geothermalism Museum explains how houses were/are heated and shows pipes that get obstruct quickly with carbonate deposits and must be cleaned frequently.

On your blog, Yu, you define yourself as a baroudeuse, an adventurer. I don’t think of myself in the same way; I’m not a baroudeur, just someone who travels sometimes, happy enough with the adventure of boiling an egg in the fountain made at a hot spring in Chaudes-Aigues in Auvergne.

Centre Caleden, thermal center that belongs to the Cantal department in a new building since 2009. Includes thermal baths, spa, fun pool, hotel, residences. Water comes out at 32-37 degrees depending on where. The average age of those who come for the cure is 65, often “retirees and professors.” The cure lasts 3 weeks, prescribed by a doctor, with 60-100% reimbursed by the Sécu [the French health system]. 230 curists come in the morning, fitness program clients then come in the afternoon.

Lunch with Claire Soyer Le Thorel, director of the Chaudes-Aigues Tourist Office at owner/chef Simone Gascuel’s Le Moulin des Templiers, in Jabrun, a 10-minute drive from Chaudes Aigues. SG’s mother ran a café here in what was formerly a mill, rebuilt after WWII. Her father wanted her to work in the kitchen. [Now there’s a line that’s open to interpretation! It means nothing to me as I read it now; I assume that it meant something to SG if she said it to me. What did your father want you to do, Yu? Mine wanted me to be a doctor. He also liked to travel.] My first encounter with Le Birlou, an apple and chestnut liqueur that smells like apple and tastes like chestnut. Salade de gesier, blanquette de veau, pruneau au vin rouge.

That’s it, Yu. I left Chaudes-Aigues soon after that for the Aubrac Plateau. My article about that, the sixth and final part of this series, will be published soon. I promise.

In the meantime, I have a question for you, Yu. After your two-year stay in France and the celebration of your 23rd birthday in Paris with pancakes and gargoyles, you visited over the following year New York, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Malaysia and Montenegro. A barodeuse indeed! Then you were in Istria, Croatia, taking your time before “the drive back to civilization.” With that line you ended your blog. Did you ever make it back?

© 2012, 2020, Gary Lee Kraut

Return to:
Part I: From Paris to Clermont-Ferrand
Part II: An Introduction to Spa Towns and Hot Springs By Way of Royat
Part III: Chatel-Guyon 
Part IV: Château La Canière, a Luxury Hotel

The post 5 Days in Auvergne, Part V: Mont Dore, Saint Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues and Yu appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

***

Before asking yourself whether you want to be, or not to be, in Moulins, you’ll quite naturally ask yourself, as I once did, “O Moulins, Moulins, wherefore art thou Moulins.” For Moulins is an unlikely destination in the hinterlands of France that’s difficult to situate on the map. Being told that the towns of Bourges, Vichy, Nevers, Autun and Montluçon are within a radius of 60 miles only vaguely helps.

Ah, there you are, Moulins. Come, let’s away.

The thought of taking the train 2.5 hours from Paris to visit a museum dedicated to theatrical costumes did little in itself to get my travel juices flowing. Yet, accustomed to following the rails southeast and southwest from Paris, it felt strangely venturesome to ride due south beyond the Loire. I say there is no darkness but ignorance. Actually Shakespeare said that. But I was ignorant of Moulins, capital of the department of Allier and of the former duchy of the Bourbon family known as Le Bourbonnais. So I took this trip as a challenge to discover something new for myself while exploring an unheralded region.

Moulins has since 2006 been home to the National Costume Center, Centre National du Costume de Scène or CNCS. In the world of theater, the CNCS is unique in its devotion to preserving, studying and exhibiting exceptional and histsorical theater costumes and elements of theater sets. Much of the collection comes from three founding institutions, the Comédie Française, the National Library (BNF) and the National Opera of Paris. The center also receives donations from costume designers, theaters, acting companies and artists and their heirs. Its vast collection of 10,000 costumes and another 10,000 articles largely remains in the on-site reserves. Choice items are then brought out thematically for evocative, even dramatic, temporary exhibits mounted twice yearly.

In 2014 the CNCS honors the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth with the exhibition Shakespeare, l’étoffe du monde (the fabric of the world), presenting costumes, mostly from French productions over the past century, of some of the bard’s most emblematic plays.

The exhibition begins by introducing visitors to the world of Elizabethan theater, then displays in a dozen rooms the diversity of Shakespeare’s world through the costumes of kings, queens, soldiers, jesters, witches, cross-dressing actors and assorted ghosts and spirits. The exhibition runs through Jan. 4, 2015.

Information about this and upcoming exhibitions can be found here.

O, had I but followed the arts!

It’s rare for France’s Ministry of Culture to allow a national collection to stray far from Paris, but the relative obscurity of theater costumes and the knowledge that the conservation of the vast collection required significant space, led to its removal from the capital region. For Moulins, a service town with a population of 27,000, 40,000 with the suburbs, the center’s creation here in 2006 was a coup that placed it on the cultural radar of the map of France.

Moulins is capital of the department of Allier and of the former duchy of the Bourbon family but had no particular historical relationship with theatrical costumes, unless one counts the uniforms of the cavalrymen who occupied the exhibition building when originally built as barracks in the late 18th century. The architect Jacques Denis Antoine (1733-1801) also designed the old mint (Hôtel des Monnaies) in Paris near Pont Neuf on the left bank of the Seine.

The CNCS is a 20-minute walk from the center of Moulins, on the left bank of the Allier, past the terns nesting along the river from April to early August. (The name Moulins refers to the mills that were once here.) On the approach the building appears rather sparse and uninviting. But the CNCS is appropriately theatrical in the presentation of its exhibitions, and there’s a nice airy brasserie inside.

While much of the CNCS’s public space is dedicated to its temporary exhibitions, the center also presents a permanent exhibition of the Noureev (Nureyev) Collection. That exhibition displays artifacts from the life and career of Rudolf Noureev (Nureyev) (1938-1989) the danceur étoile who, in the 1980s, danced with the Paris Opera Ballet and became its director (1983-1989).

In addition to its exhibitions, the CNCS is an important resource center open to stage professionals, researchers and the general public.

Shall I compare thee, Moulins, to a summer’s day?

Perhaps not, but the sun needn’t be at its peak for the curious traveler to visit a lesser-known region such as Moulins and its surrounding.

* * *

The building blocks for making a day or more of Moulins and the surrounding area of Le Bourbonnais include the following:

National Center for Theatrical Costumes and Scenography, Centre National du Costume de Scène. Tel. 04 70 20 76 20. Open daily 10am-6pm (until 6:30pm in July and Aug.). Closed Dec. 25 and Jan. 1. Tickets: 6€ for entrance to both the temporary and permanent exhibitions. Free for children under 12. For several weeks between exhibitions only the permanent collection is visible.

Moulins Tourist Office. 11 rue François Péron. Tel. 04 70 44 14 14

Choice café: Le Grand Café, 49 Place Allier. Tel. 04 70 44 00 05. An Art Nouveau café-brasserie whose 1899 décor is listed as a historical monument. Open Mon.-Sat. 8am-11pm.

Choice restaurants:
– Le Grand Café (see above)
– Le 9/7, 97 rue d’Allier. Tel. 04 70 35 01 60. Olivier Mazuelle serves fresh market fare in the center of town. Closed Sat. lunch, Sun., Mon. dinner.
– Le Trait d’Union, 16 rue Gambetta. Tel. 04 70 34 24 61. Trait d’union, meaning hyphen, refers to the link that chef Vincent Hoareau seeks to create a link between classicism with modernity. Closed Sun., Mon.
– Hôtel de Paris (see below).

Choice hotel: Hotel de Paris, 23 rue de Paris. Tel. 04 70 44 00 58. A 4-star hotel with 32 rooms and suites, AC, spa, gastronomic restaurant (opening Sept. 2014), brasserie. Member of Chateaux & Hotels Collection.

Others sight in Moulins:
– Maison Mantin (Mantin Mansion). The home of an upper-class resident (a bourgeois) of the late 19th-century left more or less as it was and according to his will.
– The flamboyant Gothic Notre-Dame Cathedral of Moulins and its late 15th-century/early 16th-century triptych of the Virgin of the Apocalypse.
– Le Jacquemart, a15th-century belfry.

Near Moulins:

– Souvigny and its Romanesque abbey church containing the tombs of the Dukes of Bourbon.
– Saint Menoux Church, another beautiful Romanesque church, and its legend that sticking ones head in the hole of the saint’s tomb will render the simple-minded more intelligent.
– Bourbon-l’Archambault, an old spa town containing ruins of a fortified castle.
– Vineyards of Saint-Pourçain, a little-known appellation using Gamay and Pinot Noir for the reds and rosés and Chardonnay, Sauvignon and Tressallier (a local grape) for the whites.

See this companion article about sights, food and drink in Moulins and the surrounding region: Tasted, Tested in Allier.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Moulins (Auvergne) and the National Costume Center appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Over the weekend of April 25-27, 2014 Vichy parties like it’s 1865 as the town celebrates its annual Napoleon III festival in honor of the emperor who raised Vichy to the rank of “Queen of Spa Towns.” Throughout the week from April 20 to 27 a group of chefs is proposing a taste of 150 years of gastronomic tradition by revisiting and reinterpreting some of culinary achievements of the Second Empire. In particular, these chefs will be taking as inspiration the culinary know-how transmitted by Jules Gouffé (1807-1877), one of the great names of French cuisine.

On the tree of culinary genealogy, Gouffé represents a hearty branch between Antonin Carème (1784-1833) and Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935). The recipe’s of Gouffé’s 1867 Livre de cuisine (translated into English as “The Royal Cookery Book” by his brother Alphonse, culinary officer for the English Court) inspired chefs for generations. A master of decorative cuisine—all those pièces montées—Jules Gouffé largely worked in Paris: his father had a shop near what is now the Pompidou Center, and Gouffé opened his own on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, later cooking for Napoleon III and leading the charge at the Jockey Club.

His cookbook, editions of which are still available in French and in English, gives precise instructions in preparing, on the one hand, rather simple dishes for the cook at home and, on the one hand, creations for emperors, kings and their financiers, la grande cuisine. Gouffé also penned cookbook about pastries, preserves and soups and potages.

Those chefs specifically honoring Gouffé during the festival weekend and the days leading up to it are: Olivier Tajetti at La Brasserie du Casino, Jérôme Piombini and David Vendemond at Le Lutèce, Emmanuel Basset at Les Caudalies, Gilbert Beurrier at Le Napoléon (Hôtel Les Nations), Marlène Chaussemy at La Table de Marlène (La Rotonde du Lac), Antoine Souillat at La Table d’Antoine, Pierre-Yves Lorgeoux at Le PYL-PYL, Daniel Vincent at Le Piquenchagne (in Saint-Yorre), Albert Caille at La Véranda (Aletti Palace), and Gilles Bettiol (otherwise director-chef of the caterer Le Montognon ) conducting the festival’s grand Napoleon III historical dinner “A la table d’hôte de l’Empereur” (49€) in the Convention Center-Opera complex.

The Napoleon III festival also celebrates the golden age of the Second Empire with music (Offenbach, naturally), costumed parades, balls, an absinthe tasting, carriage rides, a Viennese cocktail hour in honor of this year’s imperial guest The Austro-Hungarian Empire, and a reconstruction of a Second Empire military camp.

Also echoing Vichy’s chic of yesterday is an exhibition this spring of fans (éventails) from Napoleon III’s time, “The Fan during the Second Empire, between art object and fashion accessory” at Vichy’s Opera/Convention Center. The exhibition presents exquisite examples from private collections as well as from the Palais Galliera Fashion Museum in Paris and the Fan Museum of London.

For complete details on how to party like it’s 1865 see the site of the Vichy Tourist Office, 19 rue du Parc, 03206 Vichy. Tel. 04 70 98 71 94.

By train Vichy is 2:50 from Paris, 1:45 from Lyon. Vichy is a 4-hour drive from Paris and just under an hour’s drive from the Clermont-Ferrand Airport.

For an article on France Revisited about Vichy’s architectural history, including an accompanying audio slide-show, see Vichy: Not That Vichy, This Vichy.

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I would soon learn that the cereal plain (wheat, colza, barley, rye) is indeed part and parcel of Auvergne. The current owners of the hotel, the Monier family, were formerly in the flour business. After nine generations as millers (Monier is a transformation of meunier, meaning miller) they sold the business to a large competitor and entered the hotel business with the purchase Chateau La Canière.

The term “chateau” covers a wide range of large residences in France and La Canière belongs more to the mansion than the castle portion of that spectrum, but like any respectable chateau it’s reached at the end of a long tree-lined alley.

Replacing a previous structure on this site, the chateau was built in the 1880s to showcase the instruments, portraits and library of the chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) that had been inherited by a member of the Bérard de Chazelles family, and presumably to hold elegant parties. Lavoisier is considered the father of modern chemistry and credited with naming oxygen and hydrogen and developing various theories about air, combustion and other matters that I started forgetting soon after taking the Chemistry AP exam in 12th grade.

To support his passion for scientific research, Lavoisier had a job in Paris with the tax farming office known as the fermier général in pre-Revolutionary France. His research and analysis made him famous, but having “worked for the man” noted on your resumé tends to get noticed in times of revolution. Lavoisier tried to keep his head low during the Revolution, but was nevertheless sent to the guillotine during the Terror along with his fellow tax farmers. In response to attempts to save his head for its scientific smarts, a member of the revolutionary tribunal is said to have declared, “The Republic doesn’t need scientists” (La République n’a pas besoin de savants).

Chateau La Canière fell into disrepair after the last owner of the Bérard de Chazelles family was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 for her role in the Resistance and deported to Ravensbruk in 1944. Purchased by a Dutch group in 2006 and rehabilitated as a hotel and restaurant, the the project had barely taken off when the group sold it in 2010 to the Monier family. The Moniers have now upgraded La Canière to its current 5-star status.

La Canière is not as heavily staffed as a city 5-star, so employees are necessarily at your immediate beck and call. Nevertheless, the infrastructure of well-being is present. A gastronomic restaurant called Lavoisier occupies an outbuilding (to the right, above) that is partially a remnant, vastly transformed, of the chateau that preceded the current mansion. A 17th-century orangerie (citrus greenhouse) is found on the opposite side of the chateau. There’s also a swimming pool (open summer only) in the back. In addition to some handsome wood-paneled reception rooms, including one that serves as the breakfast room, the mansion/chateau has a chapel and, more interestingly, a cozy library where one can read, write and/or drink, day or night.

La Canière is now operated by two brothers, Pierre, 24, and André, 28, whose grandfather, Denys, who bears the title “manager,” can be seen puttering around the place. That sounds like a great set-up for a British sitcom, but the French are better at chateau-hotels than at sitcoms.

There are 26 rooms and suites of high comfort. Prices run 130-600€ depending on size, split into six categories, making the hotel accessible for moderate as well as higher budgets. The ground-floor rooms are spacious and wheelchair accessible, though I preferred the upper rooms, particularly the “traditional” rooms that recall (with mostly contemporary furniture) the style of what would have been the heyday of the private chateau here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. My own airy room on the top floor had more contemporary character—lively carpet, its ceiling beams and its bathroom partially open to the room—and a clear view over the surrounding cereal fields. Craning my neck to the south I could see a milky view of the mountainous region of the Volcano Park and the peak of Puy de Dome visible on the horizon.

The Lavoisier collection was sold in 1925, including a famous portrait by Jacques-Louis David of the scientist and his wife, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If I continue to speak of Lavoisier here it’s because he can’t be ignored. A copy of that portrait can be seen at La Canière along with other portraits of the chemist, reproduced ad nauseam throughout the hotel. Lavoisier is everywhere. The restaurant is named after him. Portraits, nearly always the same, line hallways and overlook beds. I was reminded of what Oscar Wilde, referring the wallpaper in his rundown hotel room in Paris, said as he lay dying, “One or the other of us has to go.”

Nevertheless, there were nice things to stay for.

Over a fine dinner in the hotel’s gastronomic restaurant, Pierre Monier, the young director, informed me that his family had actually removed a number of the Lavoisier portraits since purchasing the property and that I might only have been overwhelmed by those that remain because, unlike other clients, I took a complete tour of the hotel and its hallways. Most guests would only see a few. Be that as it may, and without suggesting that a traveler not come this way because of an overdose of Lavoisiers, they might consider removing a few more.

The pool, the restaurant, the lounge areas, the breakfast room, the atrium lobby, the library, the nearly 20 acres of lawn and wood, and the wifi undoubtedly make La Canière an attractive place to relax, reflect and romance or for a work retreat.

Château La Canière is about 10 miles from the hot springs/spa town of Chatel-Guyon by way of the Riom region. Though Riom is larger than Chatel-Guyon, it’s lesser known beyond the region. The director of the Riom tourist office was kind enough to meet me at the hotel to tell me about the treasures of the area such as the Renaissance buildings in the center of Riom and the cute neighboring villages of Mozac and Marsat.

As we shook hands to part I promised her that I would consider getting up at 6am to have a quick look at those Renaissance buildings and cute villages before heading into the volcanic landscape, but after a drink in the library, then a late dinner in the restaurant, then a long gaze up at the stars from my bedroom window, I looked long into Lavoisier’s eyes above my bed and admitted to myself that I had lied.

Château la Canière. Rue de la Croix Blanche, 63260 Thuret. Tel. 04 73 97 98 44. Member of Chateaux & Hotels Collection. The hotel is 2 miles outside the center of the village of Thuret. The Riom train station is 9 miles away.

Riom Tourist Office. 27 place de la Fédération, 63200 Riom. Tel. 04 73 38 59 45.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut (text and photos)

Continue to:
Part V: Mont Dore, Saint Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues and Yu.
Or return to:
Part I: From Paris to Clermont-Ferrand
Part II: An Introduction to Spa Towns and Hot Springs By Way of Royat
Part III: Chatel-Guyon

The post 5 Days in Auvergne, Part IV: Château La Canière, a Luxury Hotel appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Since most of my trip was dedicated to visiting old spa towns and hot springs, I wouldn’t be doing any hiking (despite my luck of a warm, sunny early spring week) or otherwise exploring the domes and craters that so define the landscape. The chain of puys begins at the western edge of Clermont. I wouldn’t be visiting Vulcania, a family-friendly museum and park explaining the existence, extinction and erosion of the volcanoes, the last of which erupted here about 7,000 years ago. Nevertheless, ever since arriving in Clermont-Ferrand and now throughout the day, I had views of the highest of the peaks, the 4806-foot Puy de Dôme, one of the major natural markers of France.

The roads that I drove along on the first hills of the Regional Nature Park of the Volcanoes were of the winding kind that would that make me feel ill as a passenger but that made me feel like a race car driver behind the wheel—at least until third gear. It was a short race. Twenty-five minutes after leaving Royat I was passing Volvic, famous for its bottled water, and the view of its 15th-century fortress castle (Tournoël), and 15 minutes beyond that I was descending into the narrow valley of Chatel-Guyon’s “thermal park,” where the hot springs are found.

Chatel-Guyon lies on the first bump out of the cereal plains of Auvergne, which is why a count named Guy II built his castle (castrum guidonis) there in 1185. Nothing remains of guy’s castle but it’s name, which is that of the town that grew around it.

Like the hiking season and the grazing season that awaited greener pastures, the season for medical thermal cures (April-October) was a week away as I traveled in Auvergne, so Chatel-Guyon was in a sunny slumber while awaiting the arrival, medical prescription in hand, of the first curists.

Today, a weekday, there was no competition for a seat on the patio of the restaurant of the town’s casino (in France, water-oriented resorts such as hot springs/spa towns are authorized to have a casino). I lunched there with Elisabeth Bertrand, director of the Chatel-Guyon tourist office. I faced out to the old thermal treatment center, les Grands Thermes (photo above), which closed in 2004, after nearly a century of use. The area didn’t seem abandoned, though in part it was, so much as waiting to be rediscovered.

Over chicken supreme, vegetables and a red Châteaugay Cotes d’Auvergne wine, an appellation produced nearby, Mrs. Bertrand explained to me of the rise and decline and transformation of the town over the past 150 years. The general outline follows that described in Part II of this series, with the following specifics:

– 1817: the beginning of timid developments of a small hot springs resort;

– 1855: arrival of the train at Riom, four miles away;

– 1858: opening of the first major thermal center below the old town of Chatel-Guyon in the narrow valley where hot water, having vaporized from deep down in the water table of the plain, pushes up to the surface;

– 1878: a doctor and a banker join forces, setting the tone for the marriage of medicine and luxury that puts Chatel-Guyon on the map of places to come for the thermal cure. During this period, the phylloxera insect was destroying vines throughout France; though not directly related, the rise of the economy of hot springs in the region coincides with the decline of revenue from the vineyards.

– 1890-1910: major developments including the construction, reconstruction and expansion of palatial hotels, the casino-theater complex, the central thermal center, and villas.

– 1912: Chatel-Guyon gets its own train station (now disaffected).

– 1919-1939: The good life continues between the wars, including the construction of another thermal bath and treatment center, the post office, and the Grand Hotel. The springs get additional medical certification particularly with new techniques to use the water to treat intestinal disorders;

– 1946-1970: With planes and more cars, increasingly mobile travelers are drawn to other vacation and resort destinations (the Riviera, foreign lands, etc.) while the medical use of hot springs here, as throughout France, becomes increasingly untethered from the notion of luxury, before losing any connection in the 1970s.

– 1970-2009: Taking the waters is no long associated with leisure and wealth but rather with the national health system’s willingness to provide for all or part of the costs of the 3-week cure. Among the clients sent to take the waters here in the 20th century are soldiers who were stationed in the French colonies and protectorates and sought treatment of intestinal disorders. By the 1960s those colonies and protectorates have gained independence from France, yet another element leading to the decline in the number of medical visitors at Chatel-Guyon from 22,000 in the late 1960s to 3500 in recent years.

What’s so special about this water?
The mineral content of the various hot springs throughout the Massif Central varies. Chatel-Guyon’s water is especially rich in magnesium, which makes it helpful in regulating intestinal transit, treat urinary problems, and healing intestinal wounds and inflammation. The presence of silicon leads it to be used for rheumatologic problems. Less important but also on the list of medical treatments for which doctors may prescribe taking the waters at Chatel-Guyon, is the presence of lithium along with the magnesium, which allows the mineral water to be prescribed for relieving stress, cramps and spasms.

To Americans and Brits, going to a designated faucet every morning for three weeks for a goblet of magnesium-heavy water or for a warm bath or other treatments may not sound very modern, or at least not influenced enough by the Japanese and Indian and Californian techniques that we now associate with spas, and some might prefer pills and other therapies, but there you have it, the Chatel-Guyon cure.

The more recent emphasis on the use of these springs for the treatment rheumatologic pain is expected to boost the number of medical visitors, according to Mrs. Bertrand, but the town isn’t betting the bank on its medical future alone. Instead, Chatel-Guyon’s growth, for this is not a town in decline but in growth, has (and presumably will) come from several other fronts.

– First, though Chatel-Guyon no longer has a direct train to Clermont-Ferrand (a train goes there from nearby Riom), this has become a bedroom community for those working in and around the regional capital. From 3500 residents in the 1970s, when most jobs were related to tourism and the hot springs, the town now as 6500 residents, even though it’s clear from the number and type of shops in town that many of those residents are spending their shopping money elsewhere. Still the numbers are enough to keep the schools and many services active.

– Second, as in all of these towns that developed thanks to their hot springs, there have been recent efforts to promote Chatel-Guyon as destination for that catch-all state of mind called “well-being” via contemporary spas. The 19th-century baths and treatment centers were always spas with a medical imprimatur, so the development of 21st-century spas emphasizing well-being rather than medicine makes good sense. For now the development of spas here and in the other hot spring towns that I visited on this trip are modest enough in size and investment that they’re largely for a local or sub-regional clientele, despite the occasional presence of a more distant visitor looking to enjoy two or three hours of soothing R&R. As far as the spas go, these aren’t international destinations, but as places to visit because of their history and architecture and natural landscape I find them fascinating for explorations off the beaten track.

– Third, more general tourism, particularly in summer, relative to their overall offering (hot springs, sports, nearby hiking, festivals).

Chatel-Guyon’s architectural heritage

A major sign of local efforts to project the town’s heritage into the future is the current renovation of the 400-seat Casino Theater through public funding and private donations. The theater, once one of the jewels of the Chateau-Guyon, was first completed in 1900 and then expanded in 1910. It’s due to reopen in 2014. Owned by the town, it is expected to earn itself a place on the festival circuit map in the region.

In discussing all this with Mrs. Bertrand, I remarked how different the role of government is in a town like this compared with a similar-sized town (or, likely, any town) in the United States. “For us,” she said, “inteventionism,” meaning the role of the government in the economic life of the town, “isn’t simply the government giving something away.” She spoke of it more in terms of making consensus decisions. “[Interventionism] has a relationship with our roots.” Americans would invariably see this as socialsm. Yet, as noted in Part II of this report, many old spa town lean right at the voting booth, though there’s no fast rule.

All of the spa towns that I visited on this trip were trying to answer the question as to what to do with their architectural heritage now that economic and cultural winds have blown away the original clients of that architecture. Chatel-Guyon, for instance, once had 70 hotels, including a number of luxury establishment. Currently, only 14 of those buildings operate as hotels, with the highest currently rated with three (out of five) stars (e.g. Splendid, Bellevue, Omental Thermalia).

Early in the 20th century, 28 springs were being exploited at Chatel-Guyon; in 1970, fourteen; now just five. You can see some of them, disaffected or closed off from the public, as you walk along the grounds of the thermal park. The luxury hotels of yesterday have been transformed into apartment buildings, their grand entrances, lobbies and ballrooms a bit forlorn without any doorman outside or fancily coiffed women walking with umbrellas on a sunny day. But I wouldn’t want this to sound like a sad portrait for this is indeed a healthy, living town. The valley of the hot springs and surrounding hotels/apartment buildings and villas makes for a pretty stroll.

The new thermal baths and treatment center of the 1980s, up the park from the casino, isn’t very attractive from the outside, but the old thermal center, the Grands Thermes, that I faced while having lunch is a treat for the historic-minded eye. Built 1904-1908, around the same time as other elements of the “thermal park,” as this part of the valley is called, the Grands Termes closed in 2004 and was purchased by the town five years later for a symbolic euro. There is as yet no consensus (i.e. viable project) as to what to do with it. However, its situation beside the casino and theater and its interior lobby are certainly promising.

The architectural heritage of these hot spring towns is part of what makes them so appealing to me. In the view above, taken from the entrance to the men’s wing of the Grands Thermes, you see the arched coffered ceiling, the red marble columns, the central table where those taking the cure would sit to write letters or to read the day’s paper, and the horseshoe staircase leading to the women’s wings. There are handsome details in the mosaic work throughout.

Unfortunately, the Grands Thermes can only be visited on Sundays from 4 to 7pm during the April-October “thermal cure” season. Once the theater has reopened in 2014 some bright and viable (or at least not too heavily subsidized) proposals will likely reach the mayor’s desk. The central space is simply too attractive to keep closed.

Coming up with a new use for the dozens of treatment rooms will be more difficult. Here’s a view of one of the treatment rooms with its ancient installations, in use until 2004.

A sunny walk-about in Chatel-Guyon eventually leads up the hill past several villas from the early 1900s, such at the villa “Les Jeannettes” (1908)…

… and to the site where Guy’s “chatel” once stood. There’s a milky late-afternoon light as I look out over the valley of the hot springs and beyond to the entrance to the volcanic park.

But I left Chatel-Guyon headed in the opposite direction, out into the plain, where Guy would watch for trouble and where I would spend an trouble-free night at the 5-star Chateau La Canière.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Other articles in this “Five Days in Auvergne” series:
Part I: From Paris to Clermont-Ferrand
Part II: An Introduction to Spa Towns and Hot Springs By Way of Royat
Part IV: Chateau La Canière, a luxury hotel
Part V: Mont Dore, Saint Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues and Yu.

The post 5 Days in Auvergne: Part III, Chatel-Guyon appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I knew from experience that rental agencies in or near train stations and airports in France simply give you the keys, once you’ve signed the necessary forms, and send you on your merry way to hunt for the vehicle at the far end of the parking lot. And since one of those forms is an inevitably incorrect sheet indicating the agency’s version of pre-rental dents and scratches to your vehicle, your failure to re-inspect may come back to haunt you when you find yourself being asked to pay for someone else’s fender bender.

Having returned to the agency to correct the error, I then set off with a slightly scratched but correctly recorded compact and headed to Royat, the first hot springs/spa town on my list on this exploratory trip to Auvergne.

I assumed that Royat would be bucolically removed from the city, and my assumption had been reinforced by the fact that a tourist official had told me to give myself 30 minutes to reach Royat from the train station. She must have guessed, though, that I’d spend the first 20 minutes correcting the rental car scratch sheet though, because after only a 10-minute drive my GPS told me that I had arrived. But I didn’t appear to have arrived anywhere other than a slope on the edge of the city. It felt like being in Yonkers after leaving the Bronx, suburban yet still city.

Furthermore, my GPS, I discovered by the end of the day, would accept street names but not numbers, so it would abandon me at the start of a boulevard or avenue and leave me to rely on direct sighting to find my actual destination. My first destination, the Hotel Princesse Flore was indeed at the start of the avenue, but I went up and down the full length twice before feeling sufficiently confident behind the wheel on these narrow, winding streets to raise my eyes high enough to see “Princesse Flore” written on the side.

Timeline for hot spring towns in Auvergne

I’d come to visit this 5-star hotel and the adjacent spa and water park because they represent the latest step in the town’s economic evolution, an evolution that began nearly 200 years ago with the discovery of its hot springs.

Though not the case at Royat (aka Royat-Camalières), some hot springs in the region were already exploited during Gallo-Roman time (e.g. Le Mont Dore). Some supplied hot water and even heating to villagers in the Middle Ages (e.g. Chaudes-Aigues). And some were already attracting visitors in the 18th century (e.g. Chatel-Guyon).

For the most part, however, the development of these hot springs medical/leisure “resorts,” as we would now call them, largely occurred during the 19th century according to the following schema.

1. a trickle of visitors following the discovery of the spring (1822 at Royat);

2. the arrival of developers with a vision (1845 at Royat);

3. an increasing stream of visitors including some fashionable French or European aristocrats, who put the destination on the proverbial map (in 1862 the most notable of French aristocrats visited Royat: Emperor Napoleon III, who suffered from rheumatism, and Empress Eugenia, who suffered from his incurable philandering);

4. the construction from 1880 to 1913, the Belle Epoque period, of ever-grander hotels and villas and buildings with furnished rooms to rent;

5. a restyling, after WWI, of water towns and their installations for the evolving high-end curists (patients taking the cure), their entourage and other vacationers; at the same time, further studies were showing the medical benefits of the waters, whether through bathing, drinking and/or inhaling vapors (mostly for rheumatism at Royat);

6. an attempt to keep on a happy face after WWII despite increasing competition from beach resorts and jet vacations;

7. a fall from grace through the 1960s as thermal baths lost their luster and the state health system pays lesser fortuned visitors to come for a 3-week medical cure, and

8. an attempt since about 2000 for local government to encourage the arrival of medical curists while trying to find ways to develop other forms of tourism with or without the thermal baths themselves.

(There are no luxury resorts among the hot springs that I visit in this series, but that doesn’t mean that Auvergne can’t appeal to luxury travelers seeking rural pleasures.)

Royat, Princesse Flore, Royatonic

Royat itself was never a major spa town despite Napoleon III’s visit—the emperor showered most of his imperial thermal favors to Vichy—, but for a time it held its own. Its medically prescribed thermal facility still welcomes about 9000 “curists” per year with a prescription to take the waters for rheumatism and certain cardiovascular diseases.

The hotel across the street from Royat’s medical thermal center entered the scene at Phase 4 of the timeline above. Built in 1883, it was renovated in the 1920s, as can be seen from the Art Deco styling of the public areas, but fell into decline in the final decades of the century. It closed altogether in 1999 (another half-dozen hotels would close over the following decade), took a deep breath when it was purchased by its current owner, Isidore Fartaria, in 2001, and reopened in 2009 as Le Princesse Flore, named for the owner’s youngest daughter. It is now a 5-star hotel, which places it a couple of notches higher than any of the hotels in the Clermont-Ferrand.

As noted at Phases 6 and 7 above, the moneyed crowded increasingly turned away from hot springs such as these in the decades following WWII. Competition from more modern coastal or foreign resorts coincided with moves to include medical water therapy among those treatments to be covered partially or fully by the French public health system.

It was a double-edge sword. Medical coverage of taking the waters meant that certain thermal facilities would continue to function and perhaps flourish by attracting patients of the national health system, but it also led the well-to-do to spend their well-being funds elsewhere. After all, the latter were not about to hang out with the general and elderly population that could now enjoy (or suffer in) the same the hot springs thanks to a doctor’s prescription that meant that some or all of their expenses covered or reimbursed by the state system (le Sécu) and the rest by complementary insurance.

Several times during the course of my stay in the region I would be told that the Sécu killed the high life of the hot springs in France. While that’s somewhat true (as I’ve noted, coastal resorts and foreign resorts also played a role), the Sécu has also allowed helped these towns to survive.

But no spa town wants to live by Sécu alone. For all its positive effects on the well-being of citizens and long-term residents, doing so could a town into a socialist retirement home. (Interestingly, spa towns tend to vote rightward rather than leftward.) So in recent years Royat (pop. 4500) and other towns have sought ways of giving some economic umph to their aquatic heritage by coupling local or regional public investments with private investients.

The Princesse Flore, privately owned, and the adjacent spa and water park Royatonic, owned by the municipality, are a case in point.

As the top hotel in the immediate Clermont-Ferrand region, the Princesse Flore is primarily (at 85%, according its director) a business hotel. There’s no good reason for an upscale leisure traveler to stay here (might as well leave the urban environment altogether) unless transiting as a family through Clermont-Ferrand on an overnight. However, if I were a business traveler who’d just spent the day at one of those French meetings that end with everyone promising to think about the situation some more and to call each other in another week or two, or three or four because vacations are coming up, I wouldn’t mind coming home to this 43-room hotel. In addition to the visible comfort of the rooms and suites, guests have free access to the watery playground of Royatonic next door and can purchase some spa treatments there.

I did not stay the night since I had a chateau-hotel in the country to look forward to that evening. But I took the time to relax for 15 minutes on a hydro-massage bed (Hydro-Jet) in Royatonic’s peaceable Sanhoa-branded spa treatment area and then made the rounds of steam, baths (cold, warm, hot, scented) and basins of its water park. At Royatonic, the water springs from its source at 86F (30C) and his heated several degrees for the indoor pool and several degrees more for the outdoor pool, which is open year-round.

Royatonic is a public project (with plans for expansion), publicly funded and operated, that, according to its director, turns a profit. How it’s public investment and operation is actually calculated with respect to that profit I leave to French journalists to investigate, but the figure that I was given of 165,000 visitors for last year is indeed significant.

Royatonic is certainly a nice place for locals and for business travelers to gather and relax—except when there’s an underwater spin class going on and the music is pumped up in contradiction of the sign asking visitors to respect the calm.

The group was cycling to the tunes from “Grease”: “Grease lightning, go grease lightening…,” “Tell me more, tell me more, did you get very far…”

So much for relaxation.

Anyway, I’d come for research rather than zenitude, and I had a lunch appointment at Chatel-Guyon, the next spa town on my list.

So I plugged Chatel-Guyon into the GPS, with Anywhere for a street name, and drove into the hills.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Hotel Princesse Flore, 5 place Allard, 63130 Royat. Tel. 04 73 35 63 63. Princesse Flore is the first French member of Best Western’s Premier association of hotels.

Royatonic and Spa SanHoa, 5 avenue Auguste Rouzard 63130 Royat. Tel. 04 73 29 58 90.

Return to Part I: From Paris to Clermont-Ferrand by clicking here.
Go to:  Part III: Chatel-Guyon.
Part IV: Chateau La Caniere, a luxury hotel.
Part V: Mont Dore, Saint Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues and Yu.

The post 5 Days in Auvergne: Part II, An Introduction to Spa Towns and Hot Springs By Way of Royat appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I’ve set out from Paris on a 5-day trip to visit some of the region’s spa towns. It’s a 3½-hour ride by train to Clermont-Ferrand, the regional capital, with stops at the towns of Nevers, Moulins, Vichy and Riom/Chatel-Guyon. Of these towns only Vichy is likely to ring any bells outside of France, whether those bells call to mind water, beauty products, spas, war or some vague “I’ve heard of it.” My research into spa towns began several years ago in Vichy, resulting in the article and accompanying audio slideshow found here. That was followed up by a trip to Moulins and surroundings, during which I visited the old spa town of Bourbon-l’Archambault, mentioned in the context of a Tasted-Tested article found here.

Clermont-Ferrand isn’t a spa town itself but rather an industrial town strongly associated with the Michelin company, which is headquartered here. I’ll spend the night there then put up a rental car in the morning to visit some of the towns that are included on the Route of Spa Towns of the Massif Central, la Route des Villes d’Eaux du Massif Central, which covers 17 destinations. Villes d’eaux is literally translated as Water towns, a term that the speaks of the source rather than its use. Water resorts are another way to think of them.

From Clermont-Ferrand I’ll visit Royat, Châtel-Guyon, Mont Dore, Saint-Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues, and points in between, before spending a final day on the Aubrac Plateau, at the southern tip of Auvergne.

The Train to Clermont-Ferrand

Unlike the high-speed trains heading to more familiar destinations and quickly showing their affinity to wide landscapes, the train into the middle of France, due south of Paris, sets off on an old chug-chug line (as opposed to a newer TGV lines). It soon reveals the architecture of middle-class southern exurbs of the Paris: the stone-and-brick pavilions of the 19th century, the tile-roofed pale-stucco cookie-cutter homes of the 20th century, the strip malls and the industrial parks. After 20 minutes the train hits an unsteady stride that switches back and forth between a trot and a gallop over the next three hours.

Whatever one’s direction on leaving the capital on an inter-regional or international train, a shift in speed and landscapes occurs after 18 to 22 minutes. After another 10 minutes your thoughts are drawn forward and you are no longer leaving Paris but headed someplace else.

While I’ve made a few forays into Auvergne over the years, it still feels like a new destination to me. Prior to several years ago, my contact with Auvergne in Paris and elsewhere over the years had primarily come in the form of:
– numerous old-time cafes and bistros created by Auvergnats who immigrated to the capital in the first half of the 20th century;
– some friends and acquaintances who left Auvergne long ago;
– accounts of people who one went hiking there,
– and the folksy Ambassade d’Auvergne, a two-floor regional restaurant in Paris (located between the Pompidou Center and Arts et Métiers), where staples include the tasty calorie-bomb aligot, made of mashed potatoes, cheese (fresh cantal), cream and garlic, all pulled from a copper pot and typically accompanied with sausage, and the delicious gut-busting truffade, made of thinly sliced potatoes sautéed in duck or goose fat, covered with the same cheese and served with pork cold cuts.

Two hours out from Paris and just past the town of Nevers, on the southwest edge of Burgundy, the train enters Auvergne without any noticeable change viewed from the track. Small towns and villages are still comprised largely of stucco houses (ivory, pink, mustard, brown) with tiles roofs (orange, red, brown), occasionally an older farmhouse, a manor or a castle. The tracks cross rivers and canals. Out the window passengers who aren’t sleeping can pass green pastures, white cattle, newly plowed fields and bare woods. It’s late March, early spring. The bushes and trees along the tracks are barely in bud so there landscape is never screened from view.

The landscape is mostly flat, with an occasional mound. Past Moulins (2.5 hours) then Vichy (3 hours) the mounds lead to hills, followed by an eruption of higher hills and ridges in the near distance and the mountains of the Massif Central further off. Then the urban sprawl of Clermont-Ferrand reaches out to greet the train.

An Evening in Clermont-Ferrand

No one to my knowledge has ever accused Clermont-Ferrand of being quaint or charming or even beautiful. Nevertheless, by the end of the evening, I think it’s a shame that I’ve had only a few hours—and Sunday hours at that—to explore the historical center.

Though it can hopefully be the starting point for wonderful travels and discovery it is not a luxury destination in itself. Michelin, the only component of France’s CAC 40 (the French equivalent of the Dow Jones Index) whose headquarters aren’t in the Paris region, leads the economy of this city of 140,000 and its suburban region of 300,000, followed by pharmaceuticals (Merck-MSD, Théa) and some metallurgy and IT companies.

Clermont-Ferrand has the bad rap of a city to which people are sent on business as punishment. But I quite liked the architectural mishmash encountered on the zigzagging walk from the train station, through the old town and out the other side to my hotel.

I saw a handsome WWI memorial.

I visited the early 12th-century Romanesque church Notre-Dame du Port just as vespers was getting underway and briefly joined the faithful and the faint ocher walls in inhaling the incense.

I entered the city’s black lava stone Gothic cathedral as the faithful were gathering there.

Beside the cathedral, the cafes and brasseries on Place des Victoires were doing unhurried Sunday evening beer-time business, while a statue of Pope Urban II continued to preach the first Crusade as he did at the Council of Clermont in 1095.

I crossed Avenue des Etats-Unis, named for the United States on July 4, 1918, in honor of the anniversary of the Delaration of Independence and the American participation in The War to End All Wars. (There are also avenues honoring Great Britain, Italy and the Soviet Union.)

I checked in at the VolcanHotel, a comfortable standardized 2-star Inter-Hotel. My room (204) looks out to a stucco wall, orange roof tiles and a church spire–who can ask for more on a short overnight? I like a good 2-star at the start of a trip to a non-luxury-minded town. Besides, lodging will only get better on this 4-night trip, you wait and see.

Then I went out again to visit the vast Place de Jaude with its theater/opera house under restoration and its fountain-bordered walkway. There’s a monument to here by Vercingetorix, the Celtic warrior who led the federated fight against the Roman conquest and won a battle again Caesar’s legions, presumably around here, before definitely losing at Alesia, in Burgundy (presumably). The statue was designed by Bartholdi, who created the Statue of Liberty.

I thought I might have dinner at one of the establishments on Place de Jaude but the square, undoubtedly bustling during the week, was looking rather desolate at twilight on this Sunday evening.

So I returned to Place des Victoires, by the cathedral, and eventually entered Oustagou. I hesitated because it seemed too much of an Auvergne cliché. But who can resist starting off with cliché, like all my visitors to Paris who crave a croissant or a crepe as soon as we set out for a walk. Anyway, the choices this evening weren’t legion, so I allowed myself to be ushered to a side table, where I enjoyed lentil soup, aligot with sausage, and a glass of light red Saint-Pourcain wine from further north in Auvergne.

The meal was fine—aligot is a hearty must-try dish—soon after I took a seat began what is probably the worst 20 minutes of musical selection that I’d ever heard in a restaurant. Allow me to list what I accompanied by regional dinner:
1. Without You (as in: I can’t live if living is…)
2. All By Myself (as in: When I was young I never needed anyone… Don’t want to be…)
3. Dust In the Wind (as in: All we are is…)
4. Feelings (as in: Feelings…)

And not soft background or funked-up versions of these but actual original screaming “I can’t live if living is without you.”

Under normal circumstances this would be enough to make you want to jump off the steeple of the adjacent cathedral, but no one else seemed to notice, except for one woman of about my age who wistfully said to her dinner companion, “Memories, memories.” (She said that in French, “souvenirs, souvenirs,” which itself a French song that one should never have to sit through in a restaurant.) But these were not normal circumstances: I had arrived in Auvergne to visit spa towns.

Leaving the restaurant I looked up to the open-snouted gargoyles on the cathedral for advice on what to do next.

They told me to go to bed.

(c) 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Go to Part II, An Introduction to Spa Town and Hot Springs By Way of Royat
Part III: Chatel-Guyon
Part IV: Chateau La Caniere, a luxury hotel
Part V: Mont Dore, Saint Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues and Yu.

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The post 5 Days in Auvergne: Part I, from Paris to Clermont-Ferrand appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Where is Allier?: The department of Allier is in the center of France within the region of Auvergne. Specifically, my destination was an area within Allier known as Pays Bourbon or Le Bourbonnais. Le Bourbonnais was the feudal fiefdom of the Bourbon family whose descendants eventually became kings of France and Spain. Spanish King Juan Carlos I is a Bourbon as is Grand Duke of Luxembourg Henri I. The capital of Allier is Moulins, 2:23 by direct train from Paris. The Allier River runs through Moulins.

Amount of time: 2 days, 1 night, but would have liked an additional day to visit more wine producers and Charolais farmers.

Local products tasted, tested, enjoyed: Saint Pourcain wines, Charolais beef, several cheeses.

Notable sights in Le Bourbonnais

In Moulins:  National Center for Theatrical Costumes and Scenography (Centre National du Costume de Scène), offers some fabulous temporary exhibits for admirers of costumes, fashion and stage performance of all kinds; Mantin Mansion (Maison Mantin), restored home a wealthy man of the late 19th-century left more or less as it was, according to his will, plus the adjacent and Anne de Beaujeu Pavilion/Museum; Le Grand Café, an Art Nouveau café-brasserie whose 1899 décor is listed as a historical monument; a walk in the old town.

Romanesque-at-heart churches near Moulins:  The Priory Church of Souvigny (Eglise prieurale St-Pierre et St-Paul), contains the tombs of the Dukes of Bourbon and is the subject of a fascinating guided tour; Saint Menoux Church, Eglise Saint-Menoux, in the village of Saint Menoux, where legend has it that sticking one’s head in the saint’s tomb (it has a big hole in the side and yes you can) is said to render the simple-minded more intelligent.

Bourbon-l’Archambault: An old spa town with ruins of the feudal fortified castle of the Dukes of Bourbon. Rooms in two castle’s towers contain exhibits that about castle life in the Middle Ages; especially designed for children but informative for all. See restaurant noted below.

TASTED, TESTED

CHEESE

Gaperon, a cow cheese with garlic and a bit of pepper. Dome-shaped, with a natural white crust, medium soft (elasticky) inside, made from raw or pasteurized milk. Not strong to the smell but with a nice little (not overwhelming) peppered garlic kick to it. Traditionally cured by hanging from a string on a hook by a fireplace. The name gaperon comes from gape, meaning buttermilk in a local dialect, since buttermilk was originally added. Its origin is actually said to be in the area of Billom, Auvergne’s garlic capital, in the department of Puy-du-Dome which is just south of Allier. For that reason it’s pared with Cotes d’Auvergne red wines, which, like the reds of Saint Pourcain tested here, are made from gamay and pinot noir grapes.

Sept-Fons, a cow cheese made by Trappist monks in the Abbey of Notre Dame de Sept-Fons in Dompierre-sur-Bresbe.

Cérilly, a very fresh cow cheese preferably made with raw milk by the cheese producing company Déret et fils. There are different versions of Cérilly, from a fromage blanc version to slightly aged versions with a crust by way of the fresh, white, mild spreadable version that I enjoyed. (Déret et fils also produces a blue cheese called Bleu Bourbon.)

Sept-Fons and Cérilly stood out among the cheeses I tried while lunching in the small town of Boubon-l’Archembault at the Grand Hotel Montespan Talleyrand, 2-4 place des Thermes, 03160 Bourbon-l’Archambault. Tel 04 70 67 00 24. This Grand is a great old-fashion 3-star hotel and restaurant with vast rooms and Louis XIV-style décor. Both the hotel and restaurant are worth the detour to this small spa town.

BEEF
Charolais. My main aim for lunch at the Grand Hotel Montespan Talleyrand wasn’t actually to discover those cheeses but rather to try a thick marbled rump of Charolais beef, simply grilled.

White or cream-colored Charolais cattle dot the otherwise green landscape in much of the Bourbonnais and beyond. Charolais actually derives its name from the town of Charolles in southern Burgundy, just over the regional border from the department Allier, so Burgundians naturally claim the Charolais as one of its own. Charolais developed from a strong workaday bovine into an animal bred for beef in the late 18th century. In the 19th century its breeding zone spread, including to the Bourbonnais, which remains a central breeding ground for Charolais.

Charolais du Bourbonnais, as the Red Label beef produced in the area is called, must be traditionally raised traditional with calves feeding on its mother’s milk then 8-9 months of the year at pasture, moving to the stable from the end of November to March, where it’s fed hay, fodder, cereal and grain.  If interested in buying a couple of local Charolais to create your own herd, here’s where.  Sheep are also raised locally for Agneau du Boubonnais. For further information on both meats see the Bourbonnais meats site.

Charolais beef is tastiest and most tender when grilled on the outside, medium rare or rarer on the inside.

By the way, grilled beef is served in France as either bleu (meaning blue), with a quick flick of less than 30 seconds on the grill, saignant (meaning bloody) with up to a minute on the grill on either side, what we would consider as rare, and à point, which might appear medium rare to medium.  Bien cuit (meaning well done) would be anything beyond that, in which case the chef stops paying attention.

WINE
Saint Pourcain
Saint Pourcain—red, white and rosé—is among the lesser known appellations in France. For those unfamiliar with the geography of the center of France—I’m still shaky on it myself—it’s difficult to situate. It’s among a diverse grouping of wines from the Upper Loire region, which is far removed from the main body of Loire Valley vineyards. The closest major winegrowing regions are Burgundy and Beaujolais about 85 miles to the east. For those with a clearer sense of the geography of wine regions in France, the zone (and in some ways the taste) can be considered as being midway between Maconnais and Sancerre.

The production zone forms a long band along the Allier and Sioule Rivers covering a variety of soils. Part of that zone, the part that I visited, is located in the Bourbonnais.

Five main grape varietals can go into Saint Pourcain, the most area-specific being tressalier used in white wines here, along with chardonnay and sauvignon blanc. All Saint Pourcain whites must contain at least 20% of tressalier even though the predominant taste is with the chardonnay or the sauvignon. The reds and rosés are made from pinot noir and gamay, a reflection of the zones relative proximity to Burgundy for the former and Beaujolais for the latter.

Friends in Paris had served as an aperitif a nice white Saint Pourcain produced by the Laurent family a few days before this trip, but here I visited Domaine Gardien, operated by the Gardien brothers Olivier (left in photo) and Christophe (right). The domain consists of 21 hectares (52 acres) of vines in the northernmost area of the Saint Pourcain production zone. The soil of their vines is clay and flint, often with white pebbles on the topsoil.

Among the Gardien brothers’ whites I preferred those with the sauvignon left out, i.e. the 80% chardonnay/20% tressallier 2007 Réserve des Grands Jours, kept en lie and in oak barrels for 6 months, bottled two years after harvest.

There must be something to those percentages that appeal to me because it was the 80% pinot noir/20% gamay 2007 Réserve des Grands Jours that I preferred it among the reds. It’s a fairly hefty dark berry wine though not to be confused with substantial reds made further east. Earlier in the day I’d had the Secret de Jaligny, a 100% old vine pinot noir to accompany a Charolais. Though considered their top of the line I found it less notable, perhaps because I’d recently been to a Burgundy tasting and had a trip to Burgundy coming up a week later.

Saint Pourcain is largely unknown in the U.S. and the U.K. and the few bottles available there may not represent the variety of offerings available closer to the production zone. Even in Paris there are few references in wine shops. Of course, this isn’t a top French wine, in fact it’s relatively inexpensive (4-10 euros per bottle in France), but it is certainly a local attraction and, at its best, a welcome change at any dinner party.

For more on Saint Pourcain wines see the official site of the appellation.

WATER
Various bottled waters from that spring-happy Vichy basin which covers part of the Auvergne region were proposed in the restaurants where I ate during this two-day visit to the Bourbonnais. Chateldon, from just south of the area I was visiting, was my choice of the occasion because less well known (to me) and more chic than the others. Fine bubbles, a smooth and easy drink.  The town of Vichy with its famous brand-name waters for drinking and spa treatment is 34 miles (55km) south of Moulins.

© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Tasted, Tested in Le Bourbonnais: Saint Pourcain Wines, Auvergne Cheeses, Charolais Beef appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

By Lindsey Wallace

As I have grown older my perception of home has changed. Not just from moving around in general, but from the experiences of coming to college, traveling, meeting new friends, and having family that are now far away from my physical home address—Paris right now—but that still give me the same feeling of warmth, love, and comfort when I think of them.

Even smells, tastes, sounds can be home. The dusty smell of old books when I breathe in the scent just along their spine always brings me back to weekends at my grandmother’s house, sitting inside on rainy days playing with old Legos on the library/living room floor. The smell of lavender reminds me of homemade lavender apple sauce my Mom would make on cool summer nights, blinking fireflies lighting up the purple Southern sky.

But one home changes to another, past hearths are forgotten and filed away in the dusty troves in the back of the mind. It’s only been this semester, living in Paris, that I’ve begun to understand that my past homes have never truly left me – rather, they lie hidden, waiting to be stirred in the most curious of ways.

Recently I was awakened by the smell of lilies. I had up and been out of bed hours before, but the overwhelming perfume snapped me to my senses after a somnolent four hour-long bus ride from Paris to the Loire Valley. A white castle loomed in the distance, dripping with ivy-covered willow trees and framed by the halo of the golden morning sun. Pink and ivory roses perched regally on the path to Chateau Azay-le-Riveau in the Loire valley, the first stop on 28-hour whirlwind tour of the Loire chateaux.

The Loire Valley is one of the most visited tourist destinations in France, and for good reason. Often called the “Garden of France,” the region boasts of ethereal beauty in the form of rolling vineyards and countryside, glorious flowers and gardens, and of course, its majestic chateaux (over a thousand in the region!).

Enchanted by the mystery and beauty of these antique wonders of stone, we hurried through five chateaux in less than two days, promenading through whispering gardens of lavender and silky roses, living labyrinths of greenery in eerie clearings, wandering in amazement through echoing halls of stone, elaborate rooms where kings, queens, and more scandalous subjects lived and died.

Out of all the enchanting sights, tastes, and sounds that weekend, a tiny stone cottage, barely visible from the road, enthralled me most of all. That was where we went for a wine tasting at a local vineyard, “Les Caves du Père Auguste,” the owner of which was only a boy when his grandfather had planted the vines himself. The tips of his vines could be seen from beyond the cave where his wine matured.

As we drove away from the tiny home and garden, I remembered the petite French town where I had lived as a child, and a wave of quiet longing swept over me for my own childhood vineyard sanctuary.

I was nine when we moved to France, to Clermont-Ferrand, in the Auvergne region, the world capital of the tire company Michelin. Downtown Clermont was grey and industrial but my village, Pérignat-lès-Sarliève, lay on the edge of Clermont, in a nestled valley of quiet greenery and lavender-perfumed wind, near le Puy-de-Dôme (the mountain on the front of Volvic water bottles), and directly in front of the Plateau Gergovie, where Chieftain Vercingetorix gave Julius Caesar one of his only military losses. My street, “Rue des Vignes,” got its name, “Road of Vines,” from the ocean of emerald that lay behind it – the beautiful vineyard of my childhood.

Below is a view from my home in Pérignat towards the Plateau Gergovie. If you look closely you can see the tiny triangle monument to Vercingetorix on top of the Plateau.

I’m not sure what it was about the vineyard—it felt like such a sacred place, especially in the morning, in the sunrise. I would sit, mouth open tasting the softness of morning as the sunlight filled my eyes, my lungs. Dewy drops glinted off the birth of the day, bursts of golden sunlight swirling into waves of auburn, ruby, amber-rose, jasper and pink pearlescence, washing across the leafy vines, bathing them in jeweled rainbow light. The vineyard seemed so alive in the sunlight, the leaves swaying in symphony to the singing wind and rising ever so slowly to the warmth of the gently coaxing sun.

As I sat in the Loire Valley, delicately swishing white wine in my glass, listening to the old man tell the story of his grandfather, I felt the true warm embrace of home for the first time since arriving in Paris. I left the Caves du Père Auguste with bittersweet taste in my mouth, and not from the dry red I had just sampled; it felt like I was leaving Pérignat and my beautiful vineyard all over again.

I realized, then, that although we may leave them, our homes never leave us—they lie quietly, waiting for us to feel them with a breath of contented recognition and fall into their arms once more.

Home, then, is not one singular place, but rather a collection of memories—tastes, sights, sounds, hopes and dreams from the past and present. So though we move on in our lives—move away, move forward—we never lose our past. We are never really away from home after all.

And so I found home yet again in the beautiful countryside of France—a country that remains my home. Feeling the warm sun on my face as I gaze out the Loire tour bus window, watching the bright leaves of vineyards as they pass by, I closed my eyes. For a moment I was home again in Pérignat, in a different time – ten years old in my flowered sundress, running, laughing, through the maze of vines that was (and always will be) my home.

Lindsey Wallace is a junior at Duke University and is in Paris for the fall semester.

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