Explore a New Area
An extract from London Evening Standard Article on 13.9.06
France's Tarn region is packed with fortified hilltop villages, lowland riverside towns, chateaux, farms and cottages at affordable prices, says Caroline Phillips
Lesley Garrett sings its praises and lives there for part of the year; Who Wants to Be A millionaire's Judith Keppel invested some of her £1 million win in bricks and mortar in the area; Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, enjoys its hospitable hills and valleys; and journalist Polly Toynbee is another fan. This is the Tarn region of France in the Midi-Pyrénées, flanked to the south by Spain and to the north by the Dordogne.
Tarn boasts the exquisite fortified hilltop village of Cordes sur Ciel, with its artists and craftsmen, open-air brocante markets with old French linen, toile de jouie fabric, faded dinner services and rustic wooden bowls; and Albi, with is not-to-be-missed Toulouse Lautrec museum, antique shops and the 13th century cathedral. Plus, there are vineyards at Gaillac with cellars for wine-tasting and medieval towns.
There are also cafés for that leisurely Pernod; bistros for steak-frites; Villefrance market where nuns stand in the shadow of the church selling convent-made damson jam; where foie gras de canard is piled high; where farmers with gnarled hands sell misshapen red peppers, trays of nectarines that taste as they should, Toulouse sausages, farm-pressed cassis juice and plump fresh goats' cheese.
There is also spectacular, unspoiled countryside dotted with thick stone-walled 19th century cottages ………….
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