Aaand with this post we're back to France (again)! This time I want to tell you about the Character Villages ("Villages de caractère") that we visited during our journey. Each of them was different and each of them we enjoyed exploring!
Village de caractère is a certain label, given to a community that have preserved traditional architecture of the place and helps to develop tourism in France. There are many of them and we visited only few from a brochure that we got at the Tourist Information.
Pérouges
Pérouges is a wonderful Medieval, former craftsmen (textile) town. This whole place is incredibly picturesque and no wonder that it is quite known in the film making industry - at least five films were shot there. I really liked walking among these stone walls and exploring the town street by street. There are really good restaurants there, you can buy various handcrafted things there too. I bought some hand made watercolour paper for my future drawings.
Thines
Thines is a very (very) small village on a cliff, but it has an amazing views. And their main object to see is an amazing church, decorated with very delicate sculptures of saints.
Naves
Naves greeted us with an incredible heat, so we did a very quick sightseeing. What we saw was another incredibly pretty village with lots of flowers and trees. Sadly we couldn't enjoy the views more because of the scorching Sun...
Labeaume
We arrived to Labeaume in the evening and had the most amazing home made ice cream there! The heat was retreating to we just walked around this cozy village and especially enjoyed the stone bridge!
Balazuc
Balazuc and Pérouges were the two most recommended villages for us to see. I have to admit that Pérouges is quite hard to beat because of its atmosphere, but Balazuc has its own charm. For example, we arrived during the "Boar on a Stake" festival and had a chance to hear local brass band playing all sorts of popular songs! Streets in Balazuc are twisting and turning, and you never know where they lead, so it's quite fun to explore!
Stay tuned for a post
about amazing castles in France!
Photos © Vincas Razma, Asta Skujytė-Razmienė
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