Visit Auvergne

What to See: The Strange Chapel Built Inside a Volcanic Monolith

Deep in the heart of the Cantal mountains lies a quiet, out-of-the-way village called Fontanges. Overshadowed by the larger, more far-famed towns of Aurillac and Salers, it’s the sort of place that doesn’t appear on most trip itineraries. In fact, most tourists have never heard of it. Yet Fontanges possesses a one-of-a-kind treasure: the Monolithic […]

A Wellness Paradise: Mont-Dore and the Fountain of Youth

Mont Dore is a charming resort for the tourist, the holiday-maker, the rest-seeker who wishes for lovely scenery, mountain air, and all the light-mindedness and amusement of an exclusively French watering-place. The antiquarian can combine business with pleasure; for while he sits in the shade at one of the little white-topped tables outside the Café […]

Spend a Night in an Auvergne Hogwarts: The Château de Val

The first Harry Potter film wowed viewers with its portrayal of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the fictional British boarding school where Harry, Ron, and Hermione came of age while foiling a multitude of evil plots. With its soaring turrets, deep dungeons, and geographic situation in the midst of here-be-dragons landscapes (e.g. the Forbidden Forest and the mermaid-haunted Great Lake), Warner Brothers’ Hogwarts is a fine example of escapism done right.

Lake Treasures: The Underwater Wine of Lac des Graves

Auvergne’s millennia-old lakes are natural vaults, full of — to paraphrase Shakespeare — ooze and sumless treasure. Many secrets lie hidden beneath their waves. In former times, some lakes — like the volcanic Lac Pavin — were believed to be the watery lairs of phantoms and monsters. Today, some lakes have become the resting places […]

A Getaway on the Lake: What to do in Aydat

You are now in the real Auvergne country as you near Lake Aydat that shines through its fringing firs-red soil, stunted shrubs, and, all round, rocks that look as though they have been hurled by giants in the last æons-ago eruption. -Robert Herring With its beaches, nature trails, and shoreline restaurants, Lake Aydat is one […]

Where to Stay in Montpeyroux: La Charmeraie

Located thirty minutes south of Clermont-Ferrand, Montpeyroux is a fortified village that has the look and feel of a Tuscan citadel. Surrounded by the Limagne campagne — a vast plain of wheatfields and wildflowers — the town is a picturesque assemblage of cypress-lined terraces, sun-washed villas, and vine-clad alleyways. Like so many Auvergnat communes, it’s […]

The Puy de Dôme: A Mystical Olympus in Auvergne

In the minds of the mythographers of ancient Greece, Mount Olympus was the home of the gods. Frequently covered in clouds and snow, it was wild and inaccessible — a constant reminder of the elemental nature of Zeus and his fellow immortals.  A similar and perhaps more numinous mountain exists in the Auvergne highlands: the […]