I was 20 when I first moved to France. Long before Emily Cooper waltzed in, I had grand Parisian dreams, although mine were shaped by a mix of Amélie Poulain’s artsy Montmartre and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen zooming around the city on mopeds and falling in love in Passport to Paris.
Finding work with my ropey French proved more complicated than anticipated. After a brief stint au pairing for a Parisian family, a long way from Montmartre, I found myself teaching English for a term in a little Auvergnian town called Monistrol-sur-Loire. My au pair mum described it as “le trou du cul du monde” (the world’s arsehole), and I was fairly sure Amélie had never set foot here, let alone Mary-Kate and Ashley.
My expectations weren’t hard to exceed, but my term in Monistrol-sur-Loire was one of the best of my life. Along with another British student, I was lodged in the old convent, part of which was still inhabited by nuns. We found the fact that they’d named their wifi network ‘Dieu’ (God) hilarious, but the graphic paintings of Jesus bleeding to death throughout less so. The one bar in town was a PMU (a cheap, betting bar found all over France, a bit like Wetherspoons with scratch cards). Weekends were filled by hitching a ride to Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand or Saint-Étienne, and we lived off a school canteen diet of chicken nuggets and overcooked French beans.
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Returning over a decade later I expected some changes – after all, I’d changed myself. I didn’t expect to find that the “world’s arsehole” would have become cool.
In the countryside near Clermont-Ferrand, I work my way through Hazy Pale Ales, NEIPAs and lagers in an ivy-covered microbrewery strung with fairy lights. The young team that runs Dark Lab Brewing Co. organises clothes swaps, beer-infused yoga classes, karaoke nights and events for pretty much every calendar date going, from Halloween parties to anti-Beaujolais Nouveau fiestas. Everything is brewed on-site, and guests can take brewery tours of the old hayloft.
Firmly in the middle of the ‘diagonale du vide’ (France’s ‘empty’ or least-populous, diagonal running from the northeast to southwest), one thing that hasn’t changed is that you need a car to get around. Or a sturdy bike, which is my next mode of transport, as I cascade over boulders in the rain and cake myself in mud in the company of my guide Romain from Joe Bike, Châtel-Guyon. I’m surprised to find that Romain isn’t much older than I am, and has recently swapped ski season life to helter-skelter down muddy long-dormant volcanoes. At the highest point of the route, amid pissing rain, we arrive at Château de Chazeron, the oldest parts of which date from the 12th century. The former stables have been transformed into a bar and concert venue.
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It’s back down into the valley next for a volcanic wine tasting at Héritage Volcanic,Domaine Pierre Goigoux. In the 19th century, Auvergne was the third biggest producer of wine in France, but its vineyards were decimated by phylloxera. It’s only just beginning to make a name for itself again, and since wine production is on a smaller scale than other French regions, there are plenty of small-scale organic and biodynamic winegrowers.
Pierre Goigoux, an organic winemaker, was among the first to start growing grapes in the region again, in 1989. The bar is much more recent, and I sip pale rosé made from Gamay grapes remembering the cheap bottles of wine from Carrefour we’d drink in Monistrol-sur-Loire. Unsophisticated, 20-year-old Brits, we hadn’t yet mastered a corkscrew and had to ask the bookshop owner across the road to uncork them for us.
At Les Vinzelles, an 18th-century former farmhouse and dovecote in Volvic, I stock up on new reading material from their on-site bookshop and tuck into a rainbow-coloured bowl that puts the veggie options of most Parisian bistros to shame.
Heading into the heart of Volvic afterwards, with its handsome yet austere grey stone buildings, I take an enamel painting class. The end result is a glazed pink and orange depiction of the dormant volcanoes around me on a slab of lava. As someone who failed their Art GCSE, I can’t help but be pleased with the result.
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None of the bars I visit, nor the café-bookshop, nor the mountain biking tours, existed when I lived in Auvergne in 2013, but amid the glow-up, I’m periodically hit by waves of overwhelming nostalgia. Over breakfast, I speak to two disgruntled farmers on their way to a mass protest in Clermont-Ferrand against the EU-Mercosur agreement. Lunch is at a village institution, En attendant Louise in Ménétrol. People come here for one dish only: truffade. A belt-busting mix of potatoes, Cantal, Tomme d’Auvergne and garlic, it’s served straight in the skillet. My waiter chats animatedly about the upcoming truffade-eating competition that weekend. Last year’s winner, he tells me, ate 1.8kg in 10 minutes. My consumption, which has already caused me to loosen my jeans, is a paltry 150g.
I digest the excesses by taking muddy stomps around the volcanoes, the scenery coming in and out of focus behind walls of thick fog, and while the brewpubs and bars are bubbling over, the hiking trails remain delightfully quiet.
From 30 March, Ryanair will run biweekly direct flights between London Stansted and Clermont-Ferrand.
Anna travelled as a guest of Terra Volcana.
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