Turenne: The Most Beautiful Villages in France

Not far from Limoges, in the southern tip of the Corrèze department, there is a plethora of beautiful, charming, and often overlooked villages. Turenne is one of them. Wind along a lovely country road, through the rolling green hills dotted with tiny hamlets and grazing Limousine cattle, and the town of Turenne suddenly emerges in all of its majesty-- perched on a steep bluff high above the pastures below. The hilltop Château de Turenne holds a commanding view of the surrounding verdant countryside, the rooftops, and the town's enormous 17th century church. Pierre and I huffed and puffed our way up the hill, and then climbed the slippery, steep, winding stairs to the top of the tour César at the hilltop Château de Turenne to take in the panoramic views.

Historically, the powerful viscounts of Turenne controlled much of the surrounding region for a thousand years starting in 1000. Back in the day, the tour was used to send signals-- with fire and smoke-- across the Medieval landscape to villages we could barely discern on the horizon. The carefully manicured gardens within the Château were gorgeous from the birds' eye view.

Turenne is one of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, an organization started by the mayor of Collonges-la-Rouge in 1982 to preserve, renovate, and promote the most beautiful villages in France, as many were hollow shells of their former selves, on the verge of being lost, after a massive rural exodus in the 20th century. (Indeed, when we visited our friends Fab and Audrey in the Pyrenees last winter, we witnessed an altogether vanishing way of life: country customs and habits of the elderly villagefolk who still-- for example-- collected their water in buckets from the river.)

The association was a brilliant marketing plan, as Les Plus Beaux Villages has since become a well-known organization by which visitors discover the gorgeous, tiny hamlets of France, many of which are off-the-beaten-path and away from the well-worn tourist circuit.