The Most Beautiful Villages of France

by Dominique Reperant

Here are 50 of the most beautiful villages in a country famous for its rural architecture and small towns. They have been selected for their situation in a picturesque landscape, for their authentic state of preservation and for their sheer beauty and ambience. 400 photos.

Genres: France

232 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1990

Reviews

[Paul Weiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, but ...

Dominique Reperant's "village" has fewer than 1,050 inhabitants and he defines "most beautiful" as most preserved. So it's no surprise that his photographic essay that explored even the tiniest corners of France resulted in a collection of impressive shots that showcase France's roots in the medieval middle ages. And while the coffee table sized book will serve as a pleasurable souvenir of a trip into the French countryside, I was considerably underwhelmed with the quality of the photographs. They have a frustrating sameness of style and composition from photograph to photograph that failed to capture the distinctness of each town and enormous variation in the geographical settings of the towns from region to region. And, if there was a rationale to the order in which the towns were presented, it escaped me entirely.

A nice memory to be sure but certainly not a book that I would categorize as so stunning that it would prompt an armchair traveller into booking a trip on the next available flight to France.

Paul Weiss

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magnificent coffee table book. The print quality of the photos of each village are suburb. Interesting facts, it gives the demographics of past and present populations of these very old villages. Some of the remote villages now have lower populations than in medieval times.

My only criticism is the map at the back showing where each village is. The layout of the map number relating to the location of each village could have been made easier to find the village.