Travel & Leisure recommends a town called Montolieu, 55 miles from Toulouse. They took a tip from book villages like Hay-on-Wye in Wales and now have 16 bookstores plus more than 20 public and private art galleries.
Posted by
1048 posts
Thank you for this information about book villages which I had not heard of before. According to Wikipedia, Hay-0n-Wye has 20 bookstores and a population of only @ 1,600! I plan to be near Toulouse in May 2024 and would love to visit Montolieu which has a population of <900! So much nicer than one bar after another.
Posted by
PA, USA
82 posts
I wonder if Becherel is still active? It's a town in northern Brittany that when we visited had a lot of bookstores, but the booksellers we talked to were discouraged because so many people were buying online, and not from these bookstores.
Nearly all the stock was in French so I believe we just bought a gift book.
It was a pretty village on a hilltop and not far from Hede where there are 11 locks very close together on the Ille et Rance canal.
Now that I've looked at a map, I see how close these are to Dinan. One thing I loved about the area was all the villages that qualified as Villages Fleuris. In the fall they were knockouts. Amazing flowers. I think we drove to 9 flowery villages in one day, all fairly close together.
Posted by
L'Occitanie, France
10621 posts
For public info: these are all used bookstores in these "book towns". The concept exists across western Europe.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_du_livre
Thanks phred for bringing these to people's attention.
Posted by
OP
Los Angeles
4853 posts
Clever towns look for a tourist angle, and this is one.