We got back home yesterday afternoon. We spent the week — five nights — in the Auvergne, which is the volcano country in the center of France. Don't worry, the volcanoes have been extinct for millions of years. The highest peaks in the Auvergne top out at a little less than 2,000 meters (6,000+ feet) — that's the same altitude as the highest mountains in the Appalachian chain (which are in North Carolina).
Driving on the A71 autoroute, heading toward the mountainous Auvergne region.
Our destination this time was the small city called Le Puy-en-Velay, which I'd been saying for years that I wanted to visit. As my 70th birthday approached, and with no plans to go to the U.S. this spring, at almost the last minute I told Walt I wanted to go to Le Puy. I found a gîte rural that was available and would let us stay with the dog. We did the five-hour drive from Saint-Aignan to Le Puy on Monday March 4. We didn't say anything about the trip on our blogs because we didn't want to alert prowlers or burglars to the fact that our house was standing empty.
Driving past the city of Clermont-Ferrand (home of the Michelin tire company) — we didn't visit the city
but you can see its famous cathedral, built of black volcanic stone, in this photo.
but you can see its famous cathedral, built of black volcanic stone, in this photo.
Walt did the driving, almost all of it on autoroutes (the French equivalent of interstates but mostly toll roads). The speed limit is 130 kph (about 82 mph) and the toll from Saint-Aignan to the big city of Clermont-Ferrand, where we turned off on a toll-free road for the last hour of the drive, was more than 25 euros. Le Puy-en-Velay (pop. about 20,000, metro area 75,000) is the chief "city" of the French département called La Haute-Loire because it's home to the headwaters of the Loire River.
This is the famous Puy de Dôme, one of the tallest extinct volcanoes in the Auvergne at 5,000 feet or so.
We didn't go up there this time, but we did go to the top back in 1995.
We didn't go up there this time, but we did go to the top back in 1995.
Over the course of the six-day trip I took about 750 photos, including photos like these that I took out the car windows as Walt drove us down there and back. But never fear, you won't have to look at them all. Organizing them and processing them is going to take me a while. I'll just post a few each day until we all get tired of them. The weather for our semaine auvergnate was showery and gray, with high winds on a couple of days, so we didn't get to go to all the places we would have liked to see. At least it didn't snow...
So sorry the weather didn't cooperate, I was hoping you would be able to go to all these places and enjoy the landscape. Maybe some other time?
ReplyDeleteWe saw and did a lot. Another time, yes, if we have time. But we also want to go to Cancale, la Baie de Somme, et la Franche-Comté... I'm glad to have seen Le Puy.
Deletelooking forward to your photos...always happy to learn about a region I havent visited...so many interesting places to choose from in France
ReplyDeleteWe toured around in western Auvergne (le Cantal) in September 2009, and in the northern part of the region (l'Allier) March 2018. Now we have explored (briefly) the Haute-Loire portion, which is the southeast corner of the Auvergne.
DeleteLook at that glorious green grass in the last photo. The Clermont-Ferrand cathedral certainly stands out from the landscape!
ReplyDeleteWonderful! I was hoping that you were heading somewhere for the week.
ReplyDeleteMy au pair family took me with them on vacation to that area, at Easter time. I remember driving through areas that felt so much like New England (roads through wooded areas, covered with pine trees of one kind or another). I know that we went to Puy -something-or-other-- small town that you had to climb up quite a bit to see the very old ruins of maybe a Cistercian abbey or some early Romanesque church that was very small. Anyway... I know where you went, so I can't wait to see photos!
Judy
Your description makes me think you went to Le Puy-en-Velay, where we were. Did you stay in a gîte or in a hotel? Or with the family's relatives?
DeleteKen, my "family" had friends in the town we stayed in, and I think we stayed in an apartment that belonged to their parents, or something like that. What I was describing above was part of the day trips that we did :)
DeleteI 'll be happy to look at any and all pictures of that area -- I've read a fair amount about it but never been there. And that green, green grass is glorious so early in the year.
ReplyDeleteThat road toll seems reasonable for the distance covered. The US interstate system was built using things like bond issues, I think, which means everyone paid for it. The French version is somewhat newer, and this way seems as if it's being paid for by the users. (That's probably oversimplification, though.)
Autoroute tolls in France are pretty high — a 2½ hour drive from Saint-Aignan to Paris on the autoroute costs about 25 euros. That's just one-way. I think the high tolls encourage people to take the train instead of driving. Driving to Paris on smaller toll-free roads takes about four hours. The high tolls also prevent people from using the autoroutes for short trips, which would make them much more congested. And finally, the autoroutes take a lot of big-rig trucks off local roads around the country.
DeleteLoving your trip already. I'm so glad that I got to see a part of the Auvergne in 2009. I will always remember the cheese factory and the puys.
ReplyDelete