A 3-Day Trip in Lovely Limoges, France

Just like any other lovely cities in France, Limoges is one small but charming city much enjoyable when wandering on foot.How to get there: you can take a 3-hour train ride from Paris (and other major cities) to reach Limoges’ awesomely old-designed train station (Gare de Benedictins).And while you wait for your train to arrive, why not have an éclair and French cream pie?

Being popular for its high quality porcelain, Limoges can be well travelled in a day or two max (or more if you add museums and zoos/parks).

On our only free-day (not chilling at friends’ place for free foodies and wine!), we head on to the center after breakfast from our splendid 1970’s hotel (Castel Faugeras).

Walking from our hotel to city center took about 6km, enjoying the bright sky and cold breeze of its autumn (and picking sweet wild raspberries along the way). We checked out the City Hall (with that huge tower clock and lavish fountain front and scattered broken porcelains around its gardens), passed by the university area, and roamed around the Old Quarter (where houses were built on plywood and muds –a UNESCO site too). From the city center and after a superb lunch, we head on for a beautiful and relaxed stroll around the lake and crossed the centuries-old roman-era bridges of St. Martial and St. Etienne. Really worth the waste of time, sitting by the bench, cuddling with your sweetheart with the waters gushing sound on the background (aaaahhhhh…life). And just when you had enough of the cuddles, head up to the Gothic Limoges Cathedral (just along the lake). It is majestic (but not as grand as the La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona) and inside the cathedral is the creepy music of bamboo organ playing, a little ghostly but makes it more awesome!

And oh, enjoy the night life in Limoges at the Old Quarter! Go at the restaurant/bar just beside the church (pictured above) – it’s the locals’ favorite (well, for my husband and his rock star friends). On our next visit (hopefully summer), we hope to visit the zoo (closed during winter) for our soon-to-come mini-Lau (yey!).