Clermont-Ferrand

Clermont-Ferrand takes its colour from the ground beneath it. The whole old town was built with lave de Volvic, a dark grey-black volcanic stone quarried from the nearby Chaîne des Puys, and the effect under grey Auvergne skies is a city that looks almost monochrome — cathedral, houses, cobblestones, all the same deep basalt tone. Lia, unimpressed by most cathedrals by this point in the trip, actually stopped walking when she first saw Clermont’s, its twin Gothic spires cut from stone so dark it looked closer to charcoal than rock.

A cathedral built from the volcanoes around it

The Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption took nearly six centuries to complete and its architects used the black Volvic stone specifically because it was local, cheap to quarry, and — as it turned out — striking in a way limestone never would have been. Inside, stained glass from the thirteenth century still survives in the choir, throwing colour across the dark stone floor in a contrast that photographs badly and looks far better in person. We climbed the north tower for the view: rooftops fading into the volcanic hills, and on a clear day, the unmistakable rounded dome of the Puy de Dôme itself on the horizon.

Rubber, Michelin, and a very good market

Clermont-Ferrand is also, less romantically, the birthplace of Michelin, and the company’s history is tangled up with the city’s identity in a way that’s hard to miss — a small museum, l’Aventure Michelin, traces the story from bicycle tyres to the guide that now rates restaurants like the ones we ate at that week. We preferred the produce market at Place Saint-Pierre, an iron-roofed hall selling Auvergne cheeses — Saint-Nectaire, Cantal, Fourme d’Ambert — alongside charcuterie and enough varieties of lentil to make Le Puy jealous.

When to go: Late spring through early autumn for good weather to combine the city with day trips into the Chaîne des Puys volcanic range just west of town.