Wendy's Platter…travels

November 4, 2025

Ooops! We passed our halfway point on Day 50 as we walked along the Allier River in Vichy. Knowing that our time suddenly feels limited, we are focusing on our priorities…but the number one priority is to enjoy ourselves, so we are doing great.

Sunday was another day of catchup…me with the blog and Nick with the laundry. Although writing the blog takes time out of the trip, it also gives me the chance to look back on our days, remember to look up things on the internet that puzzled me, and smile at some of the memories captured in the photos. It’s a good thing for me.

Farms, rolling hills, fall foliage, blue skies, a perfect day for a drive.

With writing and laundry done, and looking at the weather, Nick and I decided to take a Sunday drive on Monday to follow, more or less, the course of our short 32-kilometer river, the Durolle in its mountainous, circuitous descent through the Livradois-Forez area.

Armed with a paper map and our phone’s Google map back up, we took small country roads through small rural towns. We are now in the beginning of November and the fall coloring that was so vibrant even a week ago has started to disappear as the leaves cover the road rather than the trees.

Domaine de la Barge…maybe a place for a family reunion?

As we had no particular place to go, it was easy to allow ourselves to get distracted. Our first distraction was the sighting by Nick of what looked like a castle. We had to explore. Domaine de la Barge was, indeed, at one time a castle with moats, walls, etc. but over the ensuing centuries it had softened into more of a manor house with whispers of a château. The site was closed for the season, but Nick commented that it looked like an event venue. Google confirmed his suspicions. It was easy to imagine a large wedding taking advantage of the photogenic château, green fields and well-placed Charolais cows in the fields.

Just more beautiful countryside in the Auvergne area.

Intrigued by the name, La Chaise-Dieu (chair of God) we wound our way through tiny villages, most of which were situated atop a hill, with their church as the highest point. La Chaise-Dieu sits on a granite promontory at about 3,550 feet elevation.

La Chaise-Dieu abbey and church of Saint-Robert sits high on the hill and overlooks the valley.

The church and abbey, Saint-Robert was built in the middle of the 1300s. As it was closed to tourists, we found a spot to stop in front of a WWI memorial. As always, the men (mostly men) who died from the village were listed on one side. Added to the monument on another side were those who died in WWII. The town has less than 600 people and reading the names, we could see some of the same last names from both the wars, implying that fathers had died in WWI and sons in WWII.

Nick reads the names of La Chaise-Dieu residents who sacrificed their lives in the world wars.

Attached to the monument was also an addition of a man who had died “dans les bagnes hitleriens”…in Hitler’s prisons. The grief of the village, even after sixty years was palpable.

Back in the car, we were enchanted with the now (after several million or so years) softer volcanic domes. The small farms with separating hedgerows, cows or horses grazing, trees losing their brilliant autumn foliage and the late afternoon sun catching the higher villages as if with spotlights.

Wanting to check out the fromagerie (cheese manufacturer) in Amber we headed up the mountains. The steep mountains around the river classified the area as a gorge. Along the gorge were several mills, most of them lumber mills taking advantage of the wood supplied by the Livradois Forest. Unfortunately, the many cheese stores in Amber were closed for the day.

On the white building in the foreground, on the top right hand side of the building is a sign that reads “Chez Sue”…we would have stopped, but it was closed. However, we did stop at Chez Julie. A little sister time for me!

It was time for either a small lunch or a snack. We have yet to figure out that we need to be on French meal schedules, so we had a hard time finding any place to stop in these small towns. I got momentarily excited with I saw a place called “Chez Sue,” thinking that if it was anything like my sister Sue, it would make a good stop. However, it was closed. The next town had a restaurant named…wait for it…Chez Julie. This was clearly a sign!

Caught the last light on this church as we drove by…and then caught a glimpse of the rising moon.

We stopped into the tiny restaurant that looked suspiciously, at this time of the day, like the local hangout for a glass of wine or beer. Our waitress, who had none of the aplomb of my sister Julie, and was clearly within minutes of closing the establishment, grudgingly brought us a glass of beer and wine…but no food. One of the patrons was curious enough about us to hear our story and attempt his limited English on us. He was charming and welcomed us to France.

Two quick photos of Thiers as we were coming into town. In the one on the left, you can make out the ubiquitous crane that lives across the street from our apartment. It is just under the lit streetlamp. On the right photo, it is easy to see “our” crane on the left hand side, and below it you will note that our terrasse, the walk by our house is lit up in the fading evening light.

By the time we got back to Thiers, it was after 6:00 pm on a Monday, and the town was almost dead. In search of food, we walked straight up the hill and noticed lights on in a kebab place that we had avoided, thinking it didn’t fit our desire to focus on French food. But it was open and we were hungry.

The amount of food was huge for a single serving, but we managed to eat most of it before I remembered to take a photo. Nick was distracted by the “football” (think soccer) game that was going on above his head.

The food was very tasty and had a fair amount of fresh salad with it, making it particularly appealing to us. As it was inexpensive, and probably open more often than the other Thiernois restaurants, we realized we had found our equivalent of the fish and chip takeaways that we frequented in New Zealand.

In Nick’s hand is a well-written brochure with a very confusing map…but then Thiers with its infinite ups and downs is confusing. On the right is the first of the factories (usines). In the bottom right of the photo you can see my shadow. It will appear often in the photos with the angle of the sun at this time of year.

A reminder that the rouets, water wheels (top left hand photo) were what helped gather the energy from the river to create the factories along the river.

Having spent the previous day driving, we wanted to be more active and follow the trail for the Vallée des Usines, valley of the factories. This time we took a brochure with a map and descriptions plus my walking sticks. The trail promised steep ups and downs as it followed the lively, narrow Durolle River. We parked near the top of the trail. However, as with everything in Thiers, we were constantly going up and down.

On the left, note the workshop directly over the river. At this point in the river, it is so narrow that the factory needed to utilize the space over the river. On the right you can see how tightly knit the factories were.

The river is in a gorge and the factories were built against one side of the gorge and sometimes directly over the river to take full advantage of the free energy released by the rushing water. As I mentioned in Euro Day 37 of 100: In their wheelhouse…, the rouets or water wheels were part of the knife-making and paper mill industries of Thiers.

Harnessing the Durolle.

Over the past thousand years, the Durolle has been harnessed with locks, dames, and gates. During the industrial revolution of the mid-1800s, dozens of factories were built on the river to put to use the raging energy of the waters. To get workers to the factories on the river, pedestrian bridges were built, along with arched stone bridges.

In the top row of photos are the “hospital garden” where patients from the hospital at the top of the cliff would be brought down to the riverside to rest and perhaps put their feet in the water. Looking at the cliffs, I could not understand how an infirmed person could make it down to the garden.

Some rocks could not be moved, so buildings incorporated them or used them as art objects. The paths were often hugging the cliff and as in the photo on the bottom left were terrassed along the hillside. All of the rocks were being reclaimed by nature. There were several forges in these factories as is seen with this chimney still stands alone.

The medieval and old town of Thiers sits above the river. The workers lived above the factories and came down the nearly vertical hillside from upper Thiers.

So many rocks, so much craftsmanship.

Stairways and terraces were created into the granite hillside to allow the worker to arrive safely at work. Nature has tried to reclaim the hillside with moss, nettles, alders, and grasses. Although all of the greenery presents a softer feel to the landscape, the roar of the river is ever-present.

At the bottom of our trail, before we headed back up to our car, is the Saint-Symphorien church and abbey, built in the 15^th century. It offered a sanctuary to the wild river.

Despite the walk taking about three hours, we only covered about three miles, but made up for it and vertical ups and downs.

Nick is showing great restraint from digging in to the sablé framboise and hot chocolate.

Driving back to town, I noticed that our favorite boulangerie was open once again. It had been closed for a week and we had panicked. As we hadn’t had lunch, we stopped for a pastry and coffee. The sable framboise, a large filled shortbread-ish cookie filled with raspberry jam, was excellent and I bought another to take home for dessert tonight.

We are down to our last week in Thiers. Hard to believe.

Seven Deadly Sins answers…

Oh, and in case you are interested, here are the answers to the Seven Deadly Sins match-up from my last blog. I have put the French in parentheses. I owe you a croissant if you got them all correct!

A is Sloth (Paresse); B is Gluttony (Gourmandise); C is Envy (Envie); D is Pride (Orgueil); E is Avarice (Avarice); F is Wrath (Colère); G is Lust (Luxure)

©2025 Wendy Platt Hill