About 10 days ago, we went travelling to visit our favourite hotel and restaurant in Brive la Gaillarde in the Correze. La Cremailliere is as wonderful as ever, although as the patron said to us, "this is a recession against the middle classes and those of us who supply to the middle classes are suffering". I hope things pick up for him, and if you are in the Brive area for rugby, this is a good place to stay/get fed (particularly if you are a carnivore, but his fish dishes are wonderful too).
We took the opportunity to visit a few of the plus beaux villages de France while we were there. This nomination is hard won, and we think entitles you to grants for ensuring things are restored well, but also seems to inflate property prices and make maintaining buildings once purchased very expensive even with grant assistance.
Collonges la Rouge was our first stop - stunning in red sandstone and a stop for pilgrims to Compostella, but buildings were either chichi shops, restaurants or shuttered up.
Our second village was Turenne - quite wonderful and a bit more lived in than Collonges, and the view from the top of the tower was amazing.
Finally, on our way back up to la Loire, and therefore probably not in the Correze but jolly close to it, was Segur le Chateau (no relation to Montsegur as far as we could tell). This village was for sale piecemeal it seemed to us and there was no way to enjoy the chateau other than from the river bank.
We also saw lots of other pretty but not classified villages and became quite blase by the time we got home to our own very lovely village in France. While ours does not have the appellation, it is very lovely and perhaps a bit more alive than those we saw further south. All of them were lovely out of season, but between June and September would be full of tourists, and between November and March/April would be cold, difficult to access, and mostly closed.
Comments