Rodemack – Tour of the most beautiful villages in France 2011 No.47

Date of visit: May 1, 2011, around 1:00 p.m.

If you notice, this is already the 47th time.

Rodemack is the final village of this series, which has been running for more than two weeks since April 17th and concludes the « Tour of the most beautiful villages in France 2011 ».

It is located in Lorraine, north of Metz, the main city of Lorraine, a bit far from the beautiful village in Alsace that I visited just before. It is a village very close to the border with Luxembourg.

We left Nancy, where we were staying, and stopped in Metz first thing in the morning before coming to this village. From Nancy and Metz, we got off the highway that stretches north to Luxembourg on the way to Lodomac.

We drove pleasantly through the hilly area surrounded by fields of rape blossoms that bloomed beautifully in places. It seems we have arrived at the entrance of the village. This looks promising!

What a thought…

In the meantime, go to the center of the village.

Hmm? There’s something fishy about this place. A bad premonition. But it turned out to be right…

It’s quite normal…. The houses don’t have stone walls, and there are cobblestone streets, but there’s nothing special about them…

If you look closely, you can see some very nice French houses, but it’s a beautiful village…

After walking for a while, we found a path that might lead to the chateau. Let’s climb it!

However, the chateau was under renovation and there was nothing to see, but I couldn’t even enter the chateau (or something like it) and found myself going around the village. There’s nothing to see!

But somehow we made it to the main gate, and I was kind of hoping for the best, but no way!

It’s a neon sign (laughs) It’s okay that it’s still daytime, but does it glow at night? Please stop it…. It’s a beautiful village with a long history.

I think it was called « Little Carcassonne » in this area of Lorraine, but I don’t know what I’m talking about.

I was so disappointed that this was the end of our 2011 tour of beautiful villages.

Well, it’s been more than four months since then, and when I think back on how I felt there at the time, I feel like I had a good time sightseeing.

公式サイト：Rodemack

So in 2011, I visited a total of 47 beautiful villages, far more than the 30 I visited last year. In total, I visited 77 villages.

There are said to be 150 beautiful villages all over France, and I’ve only visited about half of them, but I think I’ve visited most of the major ones in the last two years.

It is true that not all beautiful villages are glamorous, noteworthy or worthy of a visit. But this can only be understood by visiting and experiencing the various villages for yourself. That is why you will be more impressed when you come across a truly beautiful village.

However, regardless of whether the village was good or bad, I was impressed once again by their attitude of aiming to revitalize the region through tourism and passing on their history and traditions to future generations by touring beautiful villages.

I think these villages are very closed and inconvenient compared to the countryside in Japan. Even so, with a little bit of wisdom and ingenuity, the villages can be revitalized as a tourist resource, and I think the concept of the Association of the Most Beautiful Villages in France is very wonderful.

So, this is the last installment of this long-running series.

However, my tour of the most beautiful villages in France will continue from next year. I’ll try my best to conquer them all!

（フランスで最も美しい村巡り2011　完！）