It would be insulting to say that the Corrèze département of south-west France was “undiscovered”. The county has produced not one but two recent French presidents, fields a top-flight rugby team, has world-class strawberries and Limousin beef, great rivers and as much history as it can handle. If you’ve never heard of it, that’s no fault of the locals. They’ve been doing their best for a millennium or two.

And, in places, it’s worked. The almost unbearably pretty village of Collonges-la-Rouge is discovered by hundreds every day. Canoe-jams on the rivers can turn them into wetter versions of the M25. Plus, next July 9, the Tour de France rolls through the Monédières hills to stop in Jacques Chirac’s home village of Sarran. So, no, not really undiscovered but less densely discovered than, say, the next-door Dordogne, with which it shares two rivers, an accent and a taste for duck.

These are rustic surrounds in which, off the few main roads, the lady in the GPS shrugs her shoulders, cattle outnumber people, birds of prey perch on fence-posts and farmers emerge from barns to stare at passing cars. They’re working, but we’re on release from quotidian lunacy. We breathe easy and eat well. The landscape both smacks the senses and stiffens the thighs: there’s activity here to knock out a marine. And we might bump into François Hollande. You need more?

Villages and towns

As you’ll know, the Plus Beaux Villages de France (PBVF) tag is awarded to France’s prettiest villages. Corrèze has five – way over its fair share of the 159 nationwide – and not solely because the PBVF idea originated here, though that doubtless helped. Lovely villages punctuate the landscape, untouched because no-one’s built factories or bombed them. Thus, picturesque past prosperity persists in the townscapes, notably from when the viscountcy of Turenne was a semi-independent fiefdom. It had its own money, troops and the wherewithal to dignify villages like the hilltopping Turenne itself, but also Curemonte and Collonges-le-Rouge with castles, town houses and nobility. Collonges also gains from being ruddy of complexion – the local stone is reddish – and tenaciously preserved. Naturally, it was named the first PBVF in 1982.

The viscountcy lost its footing in the 18th century, when a wastrel scion gambled away the family fortune. The region reverted to the crown. Collonges and the others slumbered, so they’re now in terrific historic nick, well able to supply you with soaps, scarves, novelty mustards and other items which much-visited beauty spots consider vital. In Collonges, the Halle Fermière des Gariotes has formidable regional beer.

Swinging east, Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne and, upriver, Argentat, recall a time when the Dordogne seethed with trade, flat-bottomed gabares taking wood, cheese and leather down to Bordeaux. Now the gabares take out those tourists not already out in canoes and kayaks and everyone’s as happy as the sunlit stone surroundings require. The greatest stonework? Stand before the extraordinary Last Judgement tympanum of Beaulieu’s Abbey Church of St Pierre – and consider whether it’s worth continuing to sin. Then go for a drink on a riverside café terrace, contemplate the river, the forested hills, the flowers and the folk having fun and stop worrying. There’s time yet for repentance.

Further north, the granite town of Meymac – steep slate roofs, narrow streets round the abbey – heralds the upland Plateau-de-Millevaches – so it’s a surprise to find a gallery of contemporary art in a wing of the old abbey. It’s been there 40 years, and re-opens this year on March 28, with a show of Dutch artists (cacmeymac.fr). Curving west, Treignac and Uzerche rise above the Vézère river. Returning Hundred Years War veterans would still find their way round the vaulted passageways, chapels, towers and fortification walls. Down below, the river meanders into gorges and the traveller arrives in Brive which, though the county’s biggest town (pop 46,000) isn’t its capital, which rankles locally.

It’s a cracking place, with a country market town buzz and, out at the Stade Amedée Domenech, first division rugby in the company of CA Brive-Corrèze-Limousin. Presently managed by ex-Ireland international, Jeremy Davidson, they’re having a middling time this season, but Brive retains the rolling gait of a proper rugby town. Meanwhile, the Musée Edmond Michelet (centremichelet.brive.fr; free) covers the local French resistance, including Michelet’s own exploits. Later, you’ll eat well chez Nicolas Eche at En Cuisine (encuisine.net) or chez Christophe Forget at the Bistro C.Forget by the market.

The you might move up the River Corrèze (which gave its name to the county) to Tulle, which though smaller than Brive (pop: 14,000), is county capital. It has also provided France with 50 per cent of its 21st-century presidents. For a place the size of Otley, that’s good going. Jacques Chirac was Correzien by birth. François Hollande wasn’t but, as a young man on the political rise in 1980s Paris, was sent by the Socialist Party to take on Chirac in his, Chirac’s, fiefdom. Chirac initially called him “Mitterrand’s Labrador”. Over the years, though, Hollande became mayor of Tulle, county council leader and, by general agreement, a Correzien by adoption. He and Chirac ended up on warm terms.

For a start, they frequented the same restaurants. Jean Poumier’s Le Central – where both held court, though not simultaneously – is now gone, as is M.Poumier himself. The Taverne du Sommelier, where both presidents also had their tables about six feet apart, survives and thrives (taverne-du-sommelier.fr). Both men prized conviviality. Hollande celebrated his election with duck pâté, beef fillet and potato rissoles. In the Taverne, before illness incapacitated him, Chirac treated a 40th-birthday hen party to kisses all round. Belgians dining nearby were impressed. “How clever of them to hire a Chirac lookalike for the occasion,” they said.

Elsewhere, Tulle stretches along the river, overseen by hills, a 13th-century cathedral with exceptional cloisters and a medieval quartier which scurries between handsome townhouses. You’ll not be long in town before learning that Tulle is the only place in France where they still manufacture accordions (the Nuits de Nacre accordion fest is June 25-28 this year; accordeon.org), used to produce arms and is twinned with Bury. A red telephone box underlines this enviable arrangement. It may take longer to hear that, on June 8, 1944, 99 Tulle men were hung from lamp-posts and balconies by the SS, in reprisal for Resistance activity. A further 149 were deported to Dachau. The memorial, on the former rubbish tip where the bodies were chucked, is on the Brive road out of town.

Back to happiness with a trip up the hill to Gimel-les-Cascades, a fine village whose three waterfalls tumble 500 feet in all, providing beauty and a good walk. Then drive on, but be careful. Not too long ago, Mme Bernadette Chirac’s car was in collision, near here, with a deer. She was, thank heavens, unharmed. History doesn’t recount what befell the deer. But, if this can happen to her, it can certainly happen to you.

Landscapes (and their uses)

If you’re not knackered by nightfall, you’re not trying. Corrèze is a spot where there’s a lot more outdoors than in, and several hundred ways of tackling it, mainly exhausting and often wet. Water is ubiquitous – in the rivers and lakes (both natural and man-made), in waterfalls, wetlands, peatbogs and springs all over the place. Overspilling into the north of the county, the 1,300-square-mile Plateau-de-Millevaches has lots of cows – but the name refers less to cattle, more to a thousand water sources. These are granite uplands, overseen by the 3,200-feet Mont Bessou (the highest round here), punctuated by the springs, doughty villages and broad-leafed woodland. There’s an extravagance of space on a Mongolian scale, and as much walking, cycling, climbing (in the nearby Monédières hills), hang-gliding and even, I’ve heard, archery, as a God-given constitution can handle.

The Vézère and Dordogne rivers supply quite the loveliest of gorges as they flow south, out of the county. Between Treignac and Uzerche, the Vézère goes lively enough for white-water sports.  Over east, on the Dordogne between Argentat and Beaulieu, the canoeing, bathing and stand-up paddling are terrific. As is the freshwater fishing throughout a region where, I’m guessing, the trout probably assumed they were safe. To the south of Tulle, granite starts to give way to limestone causses, but the roads are no straighter nor the countryside much flatter. You hike, ride or drive up and down and round and round and out of time, and then stop to ask cattle for directions, for there’s no-one else about. If you wish to back-pedal into the rest of your life, this is, in short, a fine place to start.

Landmarks

In 1969, Jacques and Bernadette Chirac bought the Château de Bity in the tiny village of Sarran (pop 275), north of Tulle. It’s persistently claimed that the château had provided refuge for Trotsky in the 1930s, when he was on the run from Stalin. He was apparently hosted by a retired British secret services chap, the then château owner. Trotsky and Chirac successively in the same castle? Nice story, but untrue: Trotsky was, at the time in question, assigned to residence near Grenoble, before leaving for Norway. You need to know this for, when you pass through these parts, someone will undoubtedly recount this tale. Please stand no nonsense.

So, anyway, Sarran was the Chiracs’ base – which is why it is home to the rather spiffing Jacques Chirac Museum (museepresidentjchirac.fr). On display are hundreds of the gifts Chirac received while president, from cowboy boots from Bill Clinton via a composition of nails and wood-pulp from Gerhard Schröder to native masks perhaps too numerous even for a devoted fan like Chirac. It’s fascinating, there’s a good little restaurant and it’s here that stage 12 of the Tour de France will end up on July 9.

Not far away, the ruins of Ventadour château, high above the river Luzège gorges, recall Bernart de Ventadour, maybe France’s greatest medieval troubadour. His hit songs of courtly love were favourites of Eleanor of Aquitaine. To the south, the medieval Towers of Merle overlook the Maronne river. There are seven of them, each one belonging to a different seigneur, for reasons too complex to go into. But it remains a hell of a collection to come across in the forested middle of nowhere.

Across the county, at Arnac-Pompadour in deep green countryside apparently shipped in from Ireland, we have the fortress-château which Louis XV gave to his mistress. This transformed Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson (or “Miss Fish”) into the Marquise de Pompadour. Later, the splendid pile became a branch of the French National Stud. It remains (also like Ireland) a hub of horse-driven activities – racing through jumping, dressage and equine shows – which climax in the Grande Semaine de Pompadour, from September 16-20 this year (pompadour.shf.eu). 

To the south, at Varetz, another sulphurous lady, the novelist Colette, is celebrated in gardens dedicated to her memory and to places in which she lived. These included Corrèze. She was here first as a young woman in 1911 when she was jolly popular, later – in 1940 – as war-time refugee, when she was not. Her haughtiness meant people were glad to see the back of her. Her reputation, as “the queen of bi-sexuality” and a woman who had had affairs with teenagers, certainly caused a stir among the country people. At any event, the gardens are lovely, and contain a great butterfly-shaped maze.

As regards natural landmarks, you need to see the extraordinary Bort “organ pipes” – towering columns of rock, born of a lava flow. They line up over two kilometres. South of Brive, the Gouffre de la Fage is a vast chasm with all the expected cave rock formations, plus 14,000 bats – Europe’s largest colony. It would be good to know how the counting was done.

Food and drink

This is south-west France, so the usual suspects show up on the plate. Foie gras, truffles, nuts, veal, beef – lots and lots of Limousin beef – lamb and pork, notably from local “cul noir” (black-bottomed) pigs. Tête-de-veau – calf head – is also common round here, was allegedly Chirac’s favourite dish, but remains a bit squidgy for my taste. Better go with ham with truffles, or freshwater fish, which abound. As, around Beaulieu, do strawberries. Tons of them, all celebrated in the river port’s Strawberry Fest on May 10 this year. Last year’s fest smashed all known strawberry records with an 100-foot-long strawberry cake.

This, the south of the region, is also where the Corrèze keeps its vineyards. They aren’t extensive but the wines are worth seeking, notably those from Branceilles. You might also try the Vin Paillé. Grapes are picked and dried (theoretically on straw, or paille) for two months, so the sugars are concentrated. Then they are pressed, fermented and aged, giving wines of a rich sweetness – which go jolly well with foie gras. 

Where to stay

In Brive, go for the Château de Lacan – a four star in 17th-century surroundings with lovely grounds (hotelchateaulacan.fr; doubles from £83). North of Tulle, try the Mercure La Seniorie in the village which, like the river and county itself, is called Corrèze. It’s manor-house stately, with lovely terrace and grounds, a decent restaurant and just beyond, the comely little village. Or try rental accommodation, with or gites-de-france.com.

Getting there

Ryanair (ryanair.com) has Wednesday and Saturday flights to Brive from Stansted, from April 1 to October 24, 2020. Or rail it – St Pancras to Brive, via Paris, takes around 8h30, with fares from around £158 return ().