Aveyron in the Press

I'm finally back in France and on my own computer after 7 weeks in the USA and a much-needed break from blogging.

It may still take me a few days to absorb the fact that I'm in Aveyron again, so for the moment I'll content myself with sharing a few references to my home département from the media.

I always get a little thrill when I see articles about Aveyron in the French press, and I invariably buy the magazine. The summer issue of vmf (Vieilles Maisons Françaises) presents a 14-part feature about homes and architecture in Le Rouergue, which is the former region of France that corresponds to the current département de l'Aveyron. I plan to savor it page by page.

My cup runneth over in French and English, because Ken of Living the Life in Saint-Aignan was kind enough to send me a link to "Introducing Aveyron", recently published in Travel and Leisure.

I am of course terribly jealous of the person who wrote it, and I must say she did an excellent job of portraying the area. Here's a little extract:

"Can so much of it be a secret—even from the French? Almost forgotten for centuries, this sparsely populated département in the south of France stretches over a wildly varied landscape of medieval villages, adventurous terrain, and fairy tale– worthy hotels."

(Marcelle Clements)

Ms. Clements also justifies the title of my blog quite nicely:

"This is la France profonde, the heartland, which Parisians seldom visit and cannot fathom, where there is some of the world's most stunning, geologically diverse countryside—much of it unspoiled."

I couldn't have said it better. I certainly haven't yet. But maybe someday I will.