48 hours in the Perche

Normandy/2022

Between Paris and Brittany, the Perche. The name comes from a vast forest of our ancestors, the silva Pertica. Although its geographical identity, mainly rural, is well-defined, this former province actually extends over four départements and three regions. Eure-et-Loir and Loir-et-Cher - with Vendômois - both in the Centre-Val de Loire region, Orne in Normandy, and Sarthe in Pays de la Loire.

Our walk through the Perche region of Normandy takes us through a superb natural park, a beautiful succession of forests and peaceful fields, bocages and meadows, ponds and marshes, hillsides and moors. Villages here are largely untouched by urbanization, which has attracted many Parisians, also attracted by (still) affordable real estate. However, it's only from La Madeleine-Bouvet onwards, as you enter the Orne, that what could be the 22nd arrondissement of the capital begins to take shape. Around Rémalard-en-Perche and Longny-les-Villages, the first electric bicycles - in place of the famous Percheron, a draught horse known for its endurance and generous rump - are showing their handlebars, and a few city dwellers dressed as gardeners can be seen holding their hedge trimmers like a bazooka. Welcome to the Perche! A native Ornaise confided to us that the shopping streets of Mortagne, where she regularly comes to do her shopping, now look a little like Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Of course, she exaggerates (a little). Because, apart from weekends and a few months a year when you might bump into Bouvard and Pécuchet out and about, naturalness prevails in this unspoilt region. A few real estate agencies, sniffing out a growing market, and a few local businesses (Pharmacie du Perche, Maisons du Perche...) are just beginning to spring up. Here, the countryside is unspoilt and the sunken lanes more numerous than the roads. So take a stroll, get lost, and don't hesitate to retrace your steps, just for the fun of it! Elegant stone-built houses are succeeded by longères with brick corbelling, castles by manor houses, abbeys by modest bell towers... In Fontaine-Simon, enter the beautiful Notre-Dame church to admire its listed altarpiece. In the charming village of La Madeleine-Bouvet, with its tiled-roofed houses, take a detour to the Pellerie farm and pass the Minoteries Guiard, whose "Fleurysette" flour supplies many regional bakeries. Moutiers-au-Perche is home to the Villa Fol Avril, a fine hotel and restaurant, as well as the famous Les Poulardes de Culoiseau farm, which is a fixture on the finest tables, mainly in Paris. Beautiful chickens and poulardes weighing close to 3 kg and fed on Perche cereals thrive here using ancestral methods, from a rustic stock. On the way to Rémalard, everyone stops at Bizou for a kiss. In Longny-les-Villages, we have a drink at the Café du Commerce on the square, and stock up on charcuterie. From here, we pass through Cour-Maugis-sur-Huisne, then Corbon, a village remarkable for its Saint-Martin church, which also boasts a listed altarpiece, and the superb Manoir de la Vove. On the way back to Mortagne, we pass through Courgeon, then La Chapelle-Montligeon and its neo-Gothic basilica, a place of pilgrimage for 140 years. Mortagne is the largest commune in the Perche region. A stroll through the town reveals a wealth of historical evidence: medieval alleyways, mansions and old houses, most of which date back to the 18th century. These include the town hall, the hotel of the receveur des tailles on rue des Tailles, the 16th-century house of Henri IV, and the house of the Comtes du Perche, which today houses the Musée mémorial Alain - the philosopher was born in Mortagne in 1868, under the name Émile-Auguste Chartier. On another note, every third weekend in March, the capital of Perche hosts the Boudin Fair, with two prize-giving events: the international competition for the best black pudding and the competition for the biggest black pudding eater. See for yourself! Finally, after a detour to Soligny-la-Trappe, a holy place famous for its abbey - the only men's monastery still in operation in the département - we'll indulge in a little foray into the Centre-Val de Loire at Senonches, a pretty village on the edge of the La Loupe forest. The market is held here on Wednesdays, and we're happy to stop off at the Hôtel La Forêt.