All of the Continent goes on holiday for August, time to put the feet up, and replenish the energies. Back soon

Small roads through the mountains have long held a fascination for us; the idea that somewhere not far is a retreat, an old church, or a farm selling chevre.

Passing under the motorway on just such a tiny road, we were soon away from the roar of the traffic and deep into the Pyrenees, where we found ourselves in a hobbit land of cork trees, the recent rains making it far more verdant than usual. Some of the trees here are are still being harvested for what must be a relic of a once thriving industry that provided the cork for the now deserted bouchon factory in Le Bolou at the foothills. 

Following the river Cure towards Vézelay   feels like being in the French version of the Cotswolds. The gentle countryside is interspersed with small, well maintained villages and lovely manor houses, except of course here there are the vines, which give us the delicious Chardonnay of this region.

Vézelay rises majestically, the village clustering around the monastery, where the remains of Mary Magdalene reputedly lie, the original reason for its fame. The monastery is one of the great buildings of the middle ages, sublime in its simplicity, superb in its execution, a true work of art. It was from here that the third crusade started, and it is one of the starting points for the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, the St Jacques shell on the façade reminding us of this.

 

One of the things that strikes us time and again driving through France, is that provincial villages often appear deserted, the façades all shuttered, and we have often wondered where all the people have gone. We were particularly struck recently by this in the area around Bray sur Seine where the villages have not been restored as they would have been in the South or Burgundy. We were transported back to the 1940s by the street scene as if wandering through a film set. The unrestored façades in this area are fantastic archives of bygone advertising, and vignettes of a lost world, an old France that lives in our collective black and white imagination.

France is such a vast country that it seems to offer infinite variety, in its countryside, towns, villages and regions. I suppose therefore that I should not be surprised by another little gem that we had not previously discovered, but Provins, just 80 km from Paris, certainly was a surprise.

The lower village with its array of small shops is certainly worth strolling around, allowing one to absorb the atmosphere of old France whilst indulging in cake and coffee. Provins is rightly famous for its medieval ramparts, and the upper town. It prospered in the 12th century as one of the trading towns set up by the Counts of Champagne. We are lucky that many of the medieval fortifications still remain, as well as an intact centre, mostly dating from the 17th century.

The real surprise for us was to discover that Provins is famous for its products made from roses, such as rose jam and candy, though it was the rose mustard that we enjoyed with our steak frites that really did it for us. Quite unexpectedly delicious!