- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Iliad Books (4 Feb 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0952537842
- ISBN-13: 978-0952537847
- Product Dimensions: 2.1 x 1.6 x 0.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 546,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
AVEYRON, A BRIDGE to FRENCH ARCADIA
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
Living nearby, I have formed a deep attachment to the Aveyron, which remains one of the most rural and least spoilt departéments (counties) in France. It forms a bridge between the mountainous Massif Central and southern France and boasts some glorious countryside. It also has 10 plus beaux villages - and many more which could justifiably aspire to the title - and a high concentration of prehistoric monuments.
As well as being a geographical crossroads it's a place where ancient meets modern. Nowhere is this more effectively symbolised than in the magnificent, gigantic Millau Viaduct, which carries the A75 motorway over the Tarn Valley. Designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster and built by the Eiffage group, this state-of-the-art tribute to modern technology was inaugurated in 2004.
Ancient successfully meets modern is one of the principal themes of Thirza Vallois' book Aveyron, a Bridge to French Arcadia. Her discovery of Aveyron was an accident. She is a well-known authority on Paris, especially its hidden corners, having lived there for years. In fact, she was in two minds about whether she should write the Aveyron book and encourage the hordes to move in, c.f. Peter Mayle and A Year in Provence. She did it anyway. Her book describes her discovery of the département over several years, starting with the high moors of the Aubrac in NE Aveyron and gradually working her way around most of the rest.
A warning: this is not a guide book. It's not a Lonely Planet-type travelogue complete with `where to stay', `where to eat', `what to do' information. Don't expect detailed maps or itineraries. Rather, this book is a personal odyssey, full of anecdotes, personal reflections and descriptions of meetings with the Aveyronnais themselves. Far from being a byword for backwardness and rural decay, Aveyron is one of the places in France where the quality of life is highest.
The book is organised along thematic lines, each of the 11 chapters dealing with a specific aspect of Aveyron, although the theme often coincides with a geographical area. I thought I knew Aveyron pretty well, particularly the western part, but I learned a whole load more from this book. For example: I previously knew very little about the Aveyron wine industry or the 19th-century phylloxera crisis that all but wiped it out; I wasn't aware that there were troglodyte villages; nor that part of northern Aveyron was once in the hands of the Grimaldi of Monaco. To my must-do list I have added countless entries.
Ms Vallois' writing style is vivid and dynamic and she draws you into the landscape with her, whether she is chasing the sunset or getting her first glimpse of Conques from an overlooking hill. There are some lovely photographs taken by Ms Vallois and photographer Patrice Geniez. I would have liked to see even more, although I know this would increase the price of the book.
My main quibble was the lack of an index, which meant slogging back and forth to re-find the things that particularly interested me.
But, with the minor caveats above, I can recommend this book if you want to get a real sense of Aveyron's history, landscapes, traditions and people.
The author sent me a copy of her book but this was after I had published a longer version of this review on my own blog. That review was based on the Kindle version.
As well as being a geographical crossroads it's a place where ancient meets modern. Nowhere is this more effectively symbolised than in the magnificent, gigantic Millau Viaduct, which carries the A75 motorway over the Tarn Valley. Designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster and built by the Eiffage group, this state-of-the-art tribute to modern technology was inaugurated in 2004.
Ancient successfully meets modern is one of the principal themes of Thirza Vallois' book Aveyron, a Bridge to French Arcadia. Her discovery of Aveyron was an accident. She is a well-known authority on Paris, especially its hidden corners, having lived there for years. In fact, she was in two minds about whether she should write the Aveyron book and encourage the hordes to move in, c.f. Peter Mayle and A Year in Provence. She did it anyway. Her book describes her discovery of the département over several years, starting with the high moors of the Aubrac in NE Aveyron and gradually working her way around most of the rest.
A warning: this is not a guide book. It's not a Lonely Planet-type travelogue complete with `where to stay', `where to eat', `what to do' information. Don't expect detailed maps or itineraries. Rather, this book is a personal odyssey, full of anecdotes, personal reflections and descriptions of meetings with the Aveyronnais themselves. Far from being a byword for backwardness and rural decay, Aveyron is one of the places in France where the quality of life is highest.
The book is organised along thematic lines, each of the 11 chapters dealing with a specific aspect of Aveyron, although the theme often coincides with a geographical area. I thought I knew Aveyron pretty well, particularly the western part, but I learned a whole load more from this book. For example: I previously knew very little about the Aveyron wine industry or the 19th-century phylloxera crisis that all but wiped it out; I wasn't aware that there were troglodyte villages; nor that part of northern Aveyron was once in the hands of the Grimaldi of Monaco. To my must-do list I have added countless entries.
Ms Vallois' writing style is vivid and dynamic and she draws you into the landscape with her, whether she is chasing the sunset or getting her first glimpse of Conques from an overlooking hill. There are some lovely photographs taken by Ms Vallois and photographer Patrice Geniez. I would have liked to see even more, although I know this would increase the price of the book.
My main quibble was the lack of an index, which meant slogging back and forth to re-find the things that particularly interested me.
But, with the minor caveats above, I can recommend this book if you want to get a real sense of Aveyron's history, landscapes, traditions and people.
The author sent me a copy of her book but this was after I had published a longer version of this review on my own blog. That review was based on the Kindle version.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
8 reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Thirza's new book about the Aveyron - a colorful journey into an ancient part of France.
6 Nov 2007
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Thirza Vallois, both historian and travel writer, avoids that "just passing through" feeling found often in other travel writing. I always bring to Paris one volume of her three volume "Around and About Paris", so that each trip I can again feel the thrill of learning a bit more about how every part of Paris is a colorful piece of an interconnected and ongoing historical story, and discover new and exciting historical tidbits about even familiar streets.
In her new book "Aveyron - A Bridge to French Arcadia" , this same talent for storytelling, along with her childlike joy of discovery, encyclopedic knowledge of history, and her very real personal relationships with its people, lead us by the hand through the geography, the history, and the individuals populating this little known part of France - a hilly and often spectacularly beautiful rural area that is a fascinating mix of the ancient and the modern but still not reachable by regular trains
From her race down a dark road in the first chapter - searching to find the perfect place to view an untrammeled "pristine beginning of time" (and finding it as the sun's red dot "inexorably" ascended into a "blazing crown" over the still world of an empty plateau) - to such information as how the picturesque Village of Conques (first viewed by her from a high vantage point where she could see the "honey colored" medieval church "thrusting its collossal towers to the heavens") became a prominent stop on the Christians' pilgrimages south to Spain (through the theft by its Abbot in 866 of the St.Foy relics from the nearby abbey of Agen), and the details of local cheese-making, to her meals and
developing friendships with such local characters as Raymond Capoulade
(known as "Capou") - the grey bearded farmer who is collecting local
memorabilia in his "barn-cum-museum", to Andre' (or "Père") Gouzes,
the poet and composer of Church music (translated into a dozen
languages) who brought a former Cistercian abbey back to life, and the
retired businessman, now local Aveyron winegrower who began to learn
his trade by purchasing a handbook at the celebrated Gibert Jeune, on
the Boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris. This new book is filled with beautiful photos and Thirza's personal insights into how such things as
the internet, or the 290,000 tons of concrete of the new Millau
viaduct that appears, paradoxically, like a "featherweight
transparency" soaring above the clouds, can coexist with the still
rugged terrain, remote villages, and grazing sheep from times
immemorial.
In her new book "Aveyron - A Bridge to French Arcadia" , this same talent for storytelling, along with her childlike joy of discovery, encyclopedic knowledge of history, and her very real personal relationships with its people, lead us by the hand through the geography, the history, and the individuals populating this little known part of France - a hilly and often spectacularly beautiful rural area that is a fascinating mix of the ancient and the modern but still not reachable by regular trains
From her race down a dark road in the first chapter - searching to find the perfect place to view an untrammeled "pristine beginning of time" (and finding it as the sun's red dot "inexorably" ascended into a "blazing crown" over the still world of an empty plateau) - to such information as how the picturesque Village of Conques (first viewed by her from a high vantage point where she could see the "honey colored" medieval church "thrusting its collossal towers to the heavens") became a prominent stop on the Christians' pilgrimages south to Spain (through the theft by its Abbot in 866 of the St.Foy relics from the nearby abbey of Agen), and the details of local cheese-making, to her meals and
developing friendships with such local characters as Raymond Capoulade
(known as "Capou") - the grey bearded farmer who is collecting local
memorabilia in his "barn-cum-museum", to Andre' (or "Père") Gouzes,
the poet and composer of Church music (translated into a dozen
languages) who brought a former Cistercian abbey back to life, and the
retired businessman, now local Aveyron winegrower who began to learn
his trade by purchasing a handbook at the celebrated Gibert Jeune, on
the Boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris. This new book is filled with beautiful photos and Thirza's personal insights into how such things as
the internet, or the 290,000 tons of concrete of the new Millau
viaduct that appears, paradoxically, like a "featherweight
transparency" soaring above the clouds, can coexist with the still
rugged terrain, remote villages, and grazing sheep from times
immemorial.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Don't miss this enchanting book!!
15 Oct 2007
Format:Paperback
The covers of this book are beautiful and foretell the gorgeous book you will find inside. I am a relentless traveler and love to read about interesting places when I am at home. This is one of the most amazing books of its kind to have been written in recent years. Ms. Vallois' talent is incomparable! I felt that I was there at her side on every page as she described the beauty of the countryside and the character of the people of the Aveyron. She plants all of this within the historical context of France and those who have passed through it over the past millenium.
We all need to pay more attention to a group of writers who do not get the mention they should--and Ms. Vallois is one of them. I have used her books for years for my trips to Paris (Around And About Paris and Romantic Paris) as have others who use them as source material. Treat yourself to an armchair visit to this gloriously remote and "undiscovered" part of France. You will hate to see those final few pages coming--it ends all too quickly as I fell in love with the people, customs, and beauty of the region I could have read several hundred more pages.
We all need to pay more attention to a group of writers who do not get the mention they should--and Ms. Vallois is one of them. I have used her books for years for my trips to Paris (Around And About Paris and Romantic Paris) as have others who use them as source material. Treat yourself to an armchair visit to this gloriously remote and "undiscovered" part of France. You will hate to see those final few pages coming--it ends all too quickly as I fell in love with the people, customs, and beauty of the region I could have read several hundred more pages.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Another outstanding book from Thirza Vallois
8 Feb 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Thirza Vallois has given readers of her book "Aveyron, A Bridge to French Arcadia" a beautiful writing of history, and in doing this, she's provided a bridge for the reader to understand and experience how today's Aveyron lives anew through its marvelous past. We are able to treasure the gifts of the landscape, rise with her at dawn to witness a magnificent sunrise, feel the thrill of a wild horse and buggy ride, vicariously salivate over wonderful food and drink, and experience a host of other pleasures in traveling with Thirza and the remarkable people of Aveyron. Now I want to go to there with book in hand!
Ross Lee Pipes
Ross Lee Pipes
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