lon, Quincy, Reuilly, and Châteaumeillant, along with Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and Gamay. Appreciated in their day by kings and royal courts, the wines of Berry nearly disappeared in the nineteenth century, attacked by the phylloxera root louse. The region's vineyards are coming back in strength today. These fruity wines make perfect partners for the famous Crottin, a tangy chèvre made in Chavignol, not far from Sancerre.
A final note for lovers of mystery: Berry has long been suspected--and still is, today--of siring witches and sorcerers. It seems that this quietly lovely land is particularly fertile terrain for superstition (or overactive imaginations). Whether to thwart the witches' power, or simply to celebrate their legend, the inhabitants Bué, once a hotbed of witchcraft, masquerade as wizards and witches during an annual festival. Nowadays, it's more frolicsome than fearsome. If black magic fascinates you, don't miss the Musée de la Sorcellerie in Concressault, where you can explore the weird world of witchcraft. You'll leave all the gladder knowing that the natural magic of Berry's gentle beauty awaits you outside!
Art treasures from an unyielding land
The last low hills of the Massif Central come to a rolling halt in the Limousin. It's something of a puzzle, really, to pinpoint exactly where one region ends and the other begins. The Limousin's connection to Auvergne is evident at Guéret, Ussel, or Aubusson, but links with Quercy are equally apparent at Collonges-la-Rouge, one of France's most beautiful villages, constructed entirely of red sandstone, and lively Brive-la-Gaillarde would look quite as much at home in Périgord as in the Limousin.
What the Limousin's three départements--Haute-Vienne, Creuse, and Corrèze--have in common are vast, deserted stretches of poor, rocky soil (like the barren plateau de Millevaches threaded with springs and streams), with precious little farmland. The land's unyielding character explains the many small holdings scattered wherever patches of arable soil make it possible to cultivate such undemanding crops as rye or potatoes.
The population has a certain unity, too, although we have to rewind the reel of time back through thousands of years. The Lemovices, who gave the Limousin its name, descended from even more ancient tribes of Iberians, Ligurians, and Celts. Rome conquered, then colonized the region, but when the Empire imploded the Limousin fell prey to the slings and arrows and hatchets and swords of marauding barbarians. The Merovingian kings introduced order and the monastic movement to the Limousin. Eleanor of Aquitaine's marriage to Henry Plantagenet in 1152 put the Limousin in the hands of the English, but during the Hundred Years' War the inhabitants rebelled against the oppression of the Black Prince. During this period of British occupation, Richard the Lionheart met his death in the Limousin, mortally wounded by an archer of his own camp who couldn't shoot straight. Though Richard's death was accidental, the hapless archer was flayed alive. Traces of these turbulent times can still be seen at the fortress of Curemonte and at Uzerche on the Vézère River, a village of ancient gables and turrets.
Christianity was embraced with fervor in the Limousin, which gave the Catholic Church three popes. Many pious hermits took refuge in the region's deep forests, and the influence of abbeys like Saint-Martial in Limoges touched all Christendom. The Limousin's many Romanesque churches display a distinctively sober style, due in part to the hardness of the local granite, which resists the sculptor's chisel. Examples are the twelfth-century collegiate church of Saint-Pierre at Le Dorat in Haute-Vienne, Tulle superb medieval cloister, and the church of Saint-Martin in Ussel.
Enamels, tapestries, and china
This spirituality, expressed in langue d'Oc (the dominant tongue in southern France) also fostered the development of a poetic literature popularized by the troubadours, who sang their songs of love in a variant of langue d'Oc called limousine.
Enamels were another art form that