Hidden France: why I fell in love with peaceful, scenic Auvergne

he irony of visiting a 17th-century plague chapel in the midst of a 21st-century pandemic wasn’t lost on me when I donned my mask, sanitised my hands and stepped into the cool of a tiny church. It was built in 1628 so the afflicted could come and pray separately from the villagers of Saint-Haon-Le-Châtel, but if it served the same purpose for Covid-suffering villagers now, it was a relief to find it empty.

The Auvergne is one of the most sparsely populated areas in Europe, and Le Roannais is a tapestry of gold and green vineyards and villages between the cities of Roanne and Vichy. I knew that Auvergne was a land of volcanoes, dramatic regional parks and very few people, but in 16 years of writing about France, this slice of gentle rolling countryside and high wooded hills almost in the centre of France was a complete revelation.

After we’d settled into our Airbnb near the town of Renaison – a house belonging to probably the most welcoming and generous family I have ever met in France – we ventured out to the local reservoir to see its biggest claim to fame: the tallest tree in France. “How do they know it’s the tallest?” quizzed the kids. “No idea,” we admitted, as we wandered along the sun-dappled path under lofty Douglas firs to the famed, a towering 66 metres tall.

Though the beauty of the villages and the landscape had been a surprise, I’d had an inkling we would eat and drink well. France’s gastronomic capital isto the east, and the Loire department’s main town, Roanne, is home to the Troisgros culinary dynasty: the family run a three-Michelin star restaurant and two more casual restaurants.

When I think of Auvergne, I always think of this:

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