Category: France

Villers-Brettoneux a little French town of 3,952 inhabitants takes the centre stage again this ANZAC Day.  Whilst the citizens of Villers-Brettoneux have never ever forgotten the role of the ANZACs in saving their …

If anyone asks you to hazard a guess as to how many different cheeses there …

Nick and Sandy provided instructions on how to fly to Carcassonne from London.  However, a more novel and stylish way to arrive could be on your own barge on the Canal du Midi.  You can charter a whole barge, …

So, I got somewhat side-tracked in the last week by yet another impending wedding, this one of my cousin from Singapore.  Family and …

We had a very special wedding invitation tonight – our friends Nick and Sandy from London are getting married in France in …

The western edges of the Massif Central and the northern slopes of the Pyrenees are noted for an excellent concentration of Palaeolithic caves.  Lascaux is set a little further away from the traditional sites, but is the most famous of these early Stone Age caves.  When you get there, you’ll hear the story of how four teenage boys stumbled upon Lascaux in 1940 on a day’s outing.  They knew that their discovery was important and decided to keep it a secret … for four days, and finally told their teacher.  This then evolved into perhaps the greatest archaelogical find in the 20th century.   

I hadn’t researched this town prior to our visit and was surprised to learn that Sarlat-la-Caneda has the highest concentration of medieval, Renaissance and 17th century facades of any town in France.  Our entry into this town was via the main street, the rue de la Republique, which itself was pretty nondescript.  However, once you get away from the main drag, you’ll be surprised at what lies beyond.

Rocamadour is a historic shrine perched on a clifftop. The town was one of the most famous centres of pilgrimage following the discovery in 1166 of an ancient grave and sepulchre which contained an …

We were told that Cahors is famous for truffles and that got our excitement up.  We were fortunate to arrive in this little town when the Saturday morning market was on.  French markets are great to walk through as you inevitably get to see and smell an amazing range of cheeses, sausages and other regional delicacies.  Although we don’t eat meat, our favourite stall was a sausage stand where the vendor had decorative miniature model pigs, goats etc amongst the sausages.  Cahors is also famous for its ‘black wine’ and this we did see a lot in the market, no truffles though.  It was a bit early for wine-tasting, but that didn’t stop some!

We arrived here in the late afternoon and didn’t have much time to explore Toulouse-Lautrec’s home town.  Still feeling under the weather, we dragged ourselves to the Cathedrale Ste-Cecile and were glad that we did as this building is awesome.  It’s …