Lazy Days in the Limousin: Collonges-la-Rouge

An hour's drive and you find yourself amidst some of the most breathtaking scenery in France: rivers cutting through rolling green and Medieval villages clinging to rock cliffs. The Limousin is still underpopulated and undeveloped, and is the picture-perfect image of rural France. (Not so the Dordogne, where towns like Rocamadour-- awesome from a distance, carved into a tall cliff-- are crawling with tourists.)





Case in point: the town of Collonges-la-Rouge, its every building made of red sandstone, poised on a hill above a tributary of the Dordogne. Here, as always walking through France, I am struck by how old everything is. Layers of history. The imposing church, an important stop on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. And the red buildings, many of them capped with turrets, are shrouded in wisteria. Flowers blooming everywhere. Walk through the winding alleyways and become enchanted with the place. Smitten, really. Perfect shutters and flower-boxes, cats sleeping in patches of sunshine, contemporary shops hidden within ancient walls.

But the Orangina costs a good EUR3. Bring a picnic, or eat in the city of Brive (it gets a bad rap, but there are good cafes aplenty.)

Remember: in France, fat chance of anything being open for lunch past 2pm. You can beg and plead, but when the kitchen's closed, these leisure-loving restaurant employees are not budging. So if you get grumpy and low blood sugar like me, when traveling around France, carry peanuts or-- eek!-- plan your meals ahead.