Château de Villandry

The château de Villandry is known for its gardens, which are impressive even in winter. What we didn’t expect was over-the-top Christmas decorations. This château is privately owned (!). Who decides how much to decorate? (And what was the budget!?!) The owner? The property manager? The owner’s Christmas-crazed, animal-loving children? You don’t realize the full […]

Chaumont-sur-Loire

Looking for beautiful old buildings? Contemporary art? Water views? Specimen trees? Find them all at the château de Chaumont-sur-Loire. First, there’s the château itself, straight out of a fairy tale: Inside, you find both rooms with historical furnishings (and Christmas decor at this time of year) and spaces devoted to contemporary art. Some of the […]

Bonjour, Tours

We’re excited to be in Tours! Our rental is in the heart of the old city but incredibly quiet despite that – it’s a modern structure built in an interior courtyard that blocks almost all of the noise. Les Halles, a large indoor food market, is just a block away. The beautiful Basilica of St. […]

Farewell, Montpellier

On one of our last days in the south of France, we headed to a church we’d seen from afar several times but never gone in. Surprise! It’s now a place to worship art, not God. A tree with hand cutouts as leaves filled the space, while fans blew gently to make continually changing shadows […]

Aigues-Mortes

On Friday, our last day in Montpellier, we took one last trip toward the Mediterranean. This time our goal was a historic town just inside the barrier island, in the middle of the salt marshes. Its name, in fact, means stagnant water. What do you build when the land is totally flat? Apparently, a perfect […]

Sète

Driving back from Pézenas, we saw a single conical hill rising along the coast and wondered what it was – and if there was good hiking there. It turns out it’s the town of Sète, and the hill is mostly covered with houses, though one small section has been preserved as a forest park. While […]

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like…

Noël! The Christmas market opened this weekend and we walked over on Monday evening to check it out. We arrived before dark so we could experience both the daytime and nighttime looks. No surprise – it’s definitely more fun at night. More people, the lights are sparkling, and the vin chaud (warm spiced wine) hits […]

Pézenas

The owner of the apartment we’re renting told us the town of Pézenas was worth a visit, so we drove about an hour to take a look. Arriving around lunch time, we had a mediocre meal at a restaurant chosen at random – I should have done some advance research! Pézenas’s old town is filled […]

Les Gorges de l’Hérault

About a 45-minute drive away, the gorges of Hérault are a national park and a “grand site de France.” As we drove in, it wasn’t very impressive. It’s not super hilly as you approach and once you arrive, the road runs along a river in a small gorge, which I expected would be scenic. Not […]

To The Sea!

We’ve visited three resort towns along the Mediterranean coast so far: Carnon, La Grande-Motte (the big dune) and Le Grau-du-Roi (the king’s inlet). They’re all on the barrier islands, backed by a series of lagoons, that run along the coast all the way to Marseille. It was really windy on Wednesday when we visited Le […]