Back on Road! This time I am in France for a week, attending a wedding but also taking the opportunity to explore a bit at the same time. My first stop is Hauterives, about an hour’s drive south of Lyon. It is a pleasant village, but one which would have remained totally anonymous had it not been for “Facteur Cheval” – the village postman in the late 1800s. Not content with a mail round covering some 40km on foot, Ferdinand Cheval became interested in the different rocks he found in the countryside, began to take them back to his house in a wheelbarrow…….and in 1879 started to build a monument in his back garden, using the samples he had collected plus small amounts of purchased chalk and cement. Totally self-taught and unaided, he carried on building for thirty three years. He let his imagination run wild, helped by pictures on the postcards and magazines he was delivering to other people every day. He finally finished his project in 1912, aged 76.

The incredible monument soon became a tourist attraction. Some people considered it a remarkable piece of architecture in the naif style. Others called it an ugly folly built by an uneducated peasant. One of the early visitors nicknamed it Cheval’s “Palais Ideal” or ideal palace, a name that the postman liked and adopted for his creation. A different early visitor took photographs without authorisation to make postcards, causing Cheval to bring the world’s first ever court case for visual copyright, which he won.

My first impression on approaching the palace’s north facade was one of puzzlement. At first sight the art work was indeed basic and bizzare, with sculptures representing scenes from the Garden of Eve including a crudely represented Adam, Eve and snake. I wondered why I had made such a detour to look at a bunch of rocks roughly held together by chalk and cement. But having made the effort to get here, I decided to give the place a chance and wandered around its outside before diving into a tunnel passing through its heart and then heading up to the roof.

After a short time, the “palace” began to grow on me. On the west side were reproductions of architecture from around the world – a house in Algers, a swiss chalet, a mosque, a medieval european castle, even an attempt to represent the White House in the USA.

On the east facade were three strangely-chosen giants from past history – Archimedes, Vercingetorix and Caesar. And all over the palace were inscriptions reflecting a deeply personal, humanist view of the world.

When it was finally time to leave I was enchanted by what I had seen and very glad I had come. The Palais Ideal is a remarkable creation, unique in the world – the work of a single man, uneducated perhaps, but with a strangely haunting vision of architecture…..and of life.

Inspired, happy and with a strange peaceful feeling, I headed onwards, south to Saint-Antoine-L’Abbaye, a small village located in the Isere department of France, which won the title of “France’s favourite village” in 2025 – a coveted award made annually.

I left my car at the foot of a steep hill and clambered up to the 900-year old gothic abbey to find a sun-drenched village square and some beautiful old buildings. After wandering around in the heat, I discovered a wonderful small shady garden in an inner courtyard and sat down to enjoy a fresh breeze whilst the sleepy village baked in the midday sun.

Feeling very relaxed, I decided it was time to move on again – this time south to the Vercors, a rugged mountainous area of France famous as a centre for the resistance against the Nazis during the second world war. The gateway to this region was another impossibly pretty village called Pont-en-Royans, with curious suspended houses hanging over the side of a small river.

From there my path headed up steeply into the mountains to the Route Combe Laval, a famous mountain road carved into the face of a cliffs and reputed to be one of the most exciting drives in Europe. It was indeed a spectacular road, with narrow tunnels cut in the rock and sweeping views of the mountains.

I continued to the French city of Die, where sadly I didn’t have time to stop except to do a short tasting of the local wines in a cellar just outside of the centre. Die is known for its sparkling wines made from a unique local grape, Clairette…….but unfortunately I found that this style of wine was not really to my taste. I carried on to my overnight destination of Saillans, a small town in the Drome region, which was barely mentioned in my guide book and which I had only chosen because its location was convenient for the next day’s driving. However Saillans turned out to be a very positive surprise – its compact historical centre was packed with an unusually high concentration of bars and restaurants, which serviced a local population that seemed unusually young for a small French village lost in the countryside.

A sign in the town’s main square proposed an interesting short walking tour, which led me through narrow passageways shaded by frequent arches……..

…….and strange cul-de-sacs. In one of these the owners had left an amazing collection of toys, with a sign encouraging parents to let their children play there. The town had a young, bohemian and arty feel – quite unlike the usual sleepy provincial French village.

After the walking tour I settled down to eat and drink at one of Saillans’ busy cafés. 15€ bought me an enormous cheese platter which was almost too much to eat, so I had to order some of the local red wine to help me wash it down. The Drome is not France’s most prestigious wine area, but its produce was perfectly drinkable and at 4€ a glass, who cares. When I paid for dinner I had the unusual experience of being pleasantly surprised by how small the bill was, and headed off to my room to digest my meal and review the day’s events. France is a remarkably rich tourist destination – in the space of just one day I had contemplated one of the world’s strangest architectural works, visited the two stunning villages of Saint-Antoine-L’Abbaye and Pont-en-Royans, done one wine tasting, driven one of Europe’s most spectacular mountain roads and ended up in the interesting small arty town of Saillans. I don’t think such a variety of attractions in such a small area exists anywhere else on earth.

Next Post: Saillans, Crest and to the Vaucluse