Cité Médiévale de Pérouges
A medieval experience gifted to the modern world through the vision of those who fought to save their heritage.
Easily reached by train from Lyon, some thirty kilometers northeast, lies Pérouges high on an escarpment overlooking the river Ain. It’s a twenty-minute uphill walk from the station in the modern part of town to the village-commune entrance where a map directs visitors and reveals that only around eighty people permanently reside here. The map is opposite a centuries-old Romanesque church with metre-thick walls shading its interior. Pérouges is described as one of France’s most beautiful, genuinely medieval villages, and its many window boxes – alive with densely planted colourful annuals – turn the village into photographic perfection by the end of summer. These, and the ivy that snakes its way around buildings, soften the roughly hewn, yellowing stone walls.
Amazing to consider how long these genuine medieval walls have stood the test of time – providing enduring shelter, these days for artists, restauranteurs and residents, some eighty in all.
The weathered dark timber window and door frames add to the picturesque rusticity as do the narrow, centuries-old cobblestone streets, at times so uneven and weathered over time that care is needed not to sprain an ankle. Many houses have been converted into artists’ studios – their heavy wooden entrances often wide enough for the small carriages used in bygone eras. It’s the artists, as well as the medieval ambience, that draw tourists here. I peep inside several studios; the jewellery, sculptures and painting impress with their craftsmanship and innovative design.
Creativity, I soon discover, has a long history here. The village had long been renowned for its handicrafts and woven textiles but the Industrial Revolution and a new railway killed off its cottage industry. The village was gradually deserted and later earmarked for demolition. However – here begins one of those stories I love – thanks to the intervention of the politician Edouard Herriot, and a committee dedicated to defending the village, it was saved and listed as a heritage site.
As in many places discovered on my journeys, gratitude is owed to the few who had the passion for saving structures of historical significance from the wheels of progress that might otherwise have developed the area into a soulless subdivision. Instead, it survives as a haven for artists, and is a favourite destination for day-trippers as well as a preferred location for movie-makers when an authentic set is demanded for historical dramas. Its few restaurants and bars serve – among other dishes – the galettes for which the area is known.
