Over the hills, under the moon - and off the beaten path

Antraigues usually is a peaceful place, but this weekend the village came alive for the annual Ardèche chestnut festival, drawing people from across the mountains. Crisp autumn air and the scent of woodsmoke greeted us as we walked out from our townhouse and into the square just as the festivities were beginning. Villagers mingled, as they awaited the evening's revelries. Tables were loaded with honeyed figs, freshly cooked chestnuts, soft cheeses and crusty bread. The smell of roasted meats drifted from fires crackling nearby, while children scampered about. As darkness fell, the festival really got going. Everybody clustered together, clinking glasses of chestnut beer and warming spiced wine. At long tables, families shared platters piled with food. A makeshift stage was set up for musicians tuning th...

It has been raining for three days in Antraigues. This is not a complaint. The oil stove is going, Rita is somewhere in the kitchen with a pot au feu that has been simmering since this morning, and I am on the sofa with a book I have been meaning to read since March. The plaster walls in this house crack a little more each winter. The light goes early. By three in the afternoon we have the lamps on. There is a particular quality to a rainy day in a village of three hundred people when you have nowhere to be. The sound of it against the terrace. The smell of woodsmoke from somewhere up the hill. The fact that the only decision of the afternoon is whether to open another bottle before or after dinner. We have been moving more or less continuously for seven months. Cities, trains, new apartments every few weeks, the low-level administration of being always somewhere temporary. This is not temporary. This house has cracking plaster and a sofa that has been worn into ...

We have a house in the Ardèche region of southern France, and on our many visits over the years, we have explored the countryside quite a lot. We have crossed its rivers, driven through the mountain passes, and visited many of the old medieval villages. We were actually beginning to feel confident that there were no major surprises left for us in the area. The other day we were proven completely wrong. A local friend told us that some hidden remnants of an ancient capital city actually lie just a few kilometers from our house. The ruins of what was once the center of the Gallo-Roman country of Helvia are more than 2000 years old. They sit atop the Jastre mountain, with no road signs or tourist brochures giving any indication that they even exist. They are completely covered by wilderness and have been lost to common memory for centuries. This was something we simply had to explore, and like two modern-day Indiana Joneses, we decided yesterday to climb the mountain and try to find this...

Photo: Finn Tranter After several months of living in the constant light of big cities, we are finally back in our house in the small village of Antraigues in the south of France. We definitely miss the hectic pulse of city life, but here in the quiet Volane valley, surrounded by dark mountains, we have at least regained the nights without any light pollution. Thousands of stars show themselves. Last night we stood on a grass slope outside the village and watched the familiar constellations rising - the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and the square of Pegasus. The longer we stood looking upwards, the more stars came out from the darkness. Their light has traveled so long to reach us that we were literally looking into the past - and some of the stars we looked at have probably stopped existing a long time ago. Carpe Diem is a well-known expression, but on a night like this, Carpe Noctem felt equally important. Seize the night, while you still ...