Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 8, 2025
Nothing under heaven could be more beautiful than the shifting lights and shadows on the remoter hills, or the crimson and rosy flush of sunset on the nearer rocks; at our feet we see well-watered dales and luxuriant meadows, whilst on the higher ground, here as in the valley of the Allier, we have proofs of the astounding, the unimaginable patience and laboriousness of peasant owners.
The most northern of the fresh-water groups is situated in the valley-plain of the Allier, which lies within the department of the Puy de Dome, being the tract which went formerly by the name of the Limagne d'Auvergne.
How many regions visited and revisited by myself now lie before my eyes as on a map the Berri, Georges Sand's country, the little Celtic kingdom of the Morvan, on the borders of which, for so many years, that charming writer, Philip Gilbert Hamerton, made his home; the Nivernais, with its souvenirs of Vert-Vert and Mazarin, or, rather, Mazarin and Vert-Vert, the Department of the Allier made from the ancient province of the Bourbonnais.
A somewhat similar, but less important, chain of extinct volcanoes also occurs in the Velay and Vivarais, between the upper waters of the Loire and the Allier, in the vicinity of the town of Le Puy. The principal city in this region is Clermont-Ferrand, lying near the base of the Puy de Dôme, and ever memorable as the birthplace of Blaise Pascal.
And here, as in the valley of the Allier, and on the road from Langogne to Mende, it is wonderful to see the uncompromising devotion of the French peasant to Mother Earth neither stones, brushwood, nor morass daunting his energy.
I was soon out of the cultivated basin of the Allier, and away from the ploughing oxen and such-like sights of the country. Moor, heathery marsh, tracts of rock and pines, woods of birch all jewelled with the autumn yellow, here and there a few naked cottages and bleak fields, these were the characters of the country.
For a long while afterwards I saw his noble attitude as he drew up, and heard the note of his bell; and when I struck the high-road, the song of the telegraph-wires seemed to continue the same music. Pradelles stands on a hillside, high above the Allier, surrounded by rich meadows.
On proceeding to the northern crest of the platform a wonderful view of the extinct craters and domes about forty in number, and terminating in the Puy de Beauny, the most northerly member of the chain is presented to the spectator. To the right is the Vale of Clermont and the rich valley of the Allier merging into the great plain of Central France.
On a glowing September morning the scenery of the Allier looked its very best. Never as long as I live shall I forget the beauty of that drive. Lightest, loveliest cumuli floated athwart a pure, not too dazzlingly blue sky, before us stretched avenue after avenue of poplar or plane trees, veritable aisles of green letting in the azure, reminding me of the famous Hobbema in our National Gallery.
The granitic plateau is bounded on the east, throughout a distance of about 50 miles, by the wide and fertile plain of Clermont, watered by the Allier and its numerous branches descending from the volcanic mountains, and is about 25 miles in width from east to west in the parallel of Clermont, but gradually narrowing in a southerly direction, till at Brioude it becomes an ordinary mountain ravine.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking