Sick of relying on internet recommendations, I left my next destination to chance. Luckily, it led to me discovering a magical hamlet in the Cévennes mountains of south-central France
An unruly rabble bursts on to the street: a noisy eruption, bubbling towards us. This isn’t closing time on the Croisette in Cannes. A flock of sheep bustles past our cottage towards the shade of a huge chestnut tree, driven by three generations of herders and their dogs. The waterlike cacophony of their bells slows until only the odd tink tink punctuates the cicadas’ hum. The sheep graze, the shepherds doze off, and the mountain hamlet is still again.
My partner and I had set off by Eurostar less than 24 hours before, yet this place felt a world away from the ad agency where I work.