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Limousin |
The holiday homes rented out by Villagrande are mainly located in rural, non urban areas.
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One of the smallest regions of France, located in the northwestern part of the central massive, is sparsely populated and rural,
lots of cattle of the same called race graze here. The time seems to have stand still.
The region is named after the capital of Limoges, an airy provincial town with a great
past. There is a magnificent Gothic cathedral, St. Etienne, far too big for this town as is the station designed in an opulent neo neo
style by Gonthier. There is a generous porcelain National Museum (named after the founder A. Dubouché) that, with more than 10,000 exhibits to the world's leading museums
in this area. The museum is located precisely here because of the kaolin discovered in 1768 in the River Vienne.
Lovers of August Renoir, the son of a tailor who was born here, can find some of this impressionist master paintings in the enamel museum.
Are we going there for some unknown art works? Well, often, these attractions indicated in tourist guides are an alibi for something else that is not standardized.
That's the nicest about looking up these sites: they are often within walking distance of each route and there is surely a nice terrace, cafe or restaurant for a snack or a
drink. Limoges is such a suitable small French town full of little quirks.
At least that is if you really look around you. Just look for a alimentation,
a boucherie, a boulangerie for a picnic, a bottle, a cheese, some fruit and a baquet and thus walk along the river upstream to somewhere in a
quiet park in the shadow of a statue and lie there during the hot hours of the day.
Then we think of the Renoirs, which we did not see but know of posters and calendar pages;
the performances of carefree country life with all those smiling people for whom life is a lark. Now we experience in person the world imagined by Renoir, but than a
century later. If necessary we buy ourselves a French straw hat from the museum shop: better poundful lucky than ounceful wise, or as the French say so nicely:
Mieux vault once the fortune qu'une livre une segesse .
Now that's vacation! Especially with a fine and well located holidayhome, house or apartment in the neighborhood for as long as possible and carefree stay.
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