Two Week Stay in one spot

What would like -- sea side, wine country, city, etc? --- please some direction.

Hi,
France has over 30,000 villages. We need more information to advise you properly:
- Time of year
- Rest of itinerary
- Regions of France you've already visited
- Interests (art, nature, food, wine, sea, mountains...)
- Do you speak any French?

Now, I've opened my random destination generator, and it gave me... Cotignac. Untouristy yet breathtakingly beautiful Provençal village set at the foot of a cliff. Big enough to have a choice of shop and cafés. Many day trips possible: Verdon Gorge, St Tropez, Aix en Provence are all within 90 minutes drive. Beautiful river beach a 15 minute drive away ("Vallon sourn"). Car essential.

I take it that you plan to have a car?

Small quaint villages have a tourist economy for the most part. You can pretend to be part of 'French life'. (we do and it is lovely) but you won't be part of the village i.e. the local culture. We have done this in Cadouin in the Dordogne and loved touring the area and cooking from the lovely markets and enjoying the beauty of this and nearby towns. The closest we got to 'being part of the local French culture' was attending a night market, where tables are set up on the town square, food vendors sell ready to eat food and drink and there is a band to dance. We ended up sitting at a table full of British and Australian ex pats who lived in the area which is a favorite for British retirees (it is sometimes referred to as Dordogneshire). Other tables were occupied by French locals. It was very fun and we met interesting people. There are snapshots of this as well as a snapshot of the cottage we shared with friends in Cadouin.
https://janettravels.wordpress.com/2017/07/25/perfect-place-for-murder-commarque-chateau/
We have also spent a couple of weeks in a cottage in Semur en Auxois which was lovely but again -- we loved the rhythm of small town life, but we were not part of local culture in the sense of getting to know and be entertained by locals in their homes. Still worth doing.
https://janettravels.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/medieval-towns/
We live like locals in Paris too, shopping for the daily bread every morning in nearby bakeries and dining out once a week but mostly shopping in shops and markets and cooking. We give dinner parties for local friends -- but these are mostly people we met through connections we had before we visited Paris and we have built on them over the years. Some are ex pats and some are local French people.

You could always try one of the official "most beautiful villages in France"!

Hi from Wisconsin,
We tend to spend a week at a time per location when in France. I would suggest these items to give you direction.
Gites de France: find a cottage/apartment/house in a village to rent. They tend to rent Saturday -Saturday. The web-site is a bit clunky but you won't believe the places available for rent or their prices. You might have to bring your own sheets.

Does the village have a boulangerie? How about a green grocer? And a butcher? That way you can walk to each each day and if you speak French you can interact with the shop keepers.
A cafe? And a restaurant or two?
Is there a weekly market?

A few years ago the village of Marcilhac-sur-Cele had many of these and was a bit off the tourist path. But it is small, the butcher came once or twice a week in his truck, and the boulangerie might have shut down for lack of population not quality of croissants or baguettes. The surrounding countryside is hilly, has nice villages, and has a very rural unspoiled look.

Riom-es-Montages is a great little place surrounded by cattle grazing in the woods. South-central France. Town is rural enough to have a specialty store that only sells cow/sheep bells and collars. Nice coffee shop! We only spent mornings there and always had a hard time getting on to where we had planned to go. Our cottage was in neighboring Valette, which had nothing except a communal wood fired bread oven. (pretty neat) Tourists are strange enough here that we were asked "what are you doing here?" by an exParisian. I asked her the same question. Fresh trout at the market. So fresh you got to see them caught and clubbed.

Salie-de-Bearne in southern France in the Basque region, but is a bit more than a village. Nonetheless, it is a great place to locate. Food is great in the village and the surrounding towns. Beautiful scenery. Four or five or six restaurants. One was excellent especially considering the price.

Olanzac in south central France, once again more than a tiny village. It has an ex-pat community. A weekly market that is good sized for the place. More than one bakery, but only one worth going to.

Avallon is the biggest place of any I have mentioned. A very nice market and it may be held more than once per week. Good food. An alive 'main street'. Off the tourist path.

I would go back to Bayeux. Big place. Has cathedral, so it is a city. Great market on Saturday. Of course it has the great embroidery piece from 1070.

Hope this helps.

wayne INWI

Yo NJ,
Your choice is endless, but maybe check out Uzes in the Gard. Or Semue-en-Auxois in Burgundy.
In any case, trust your instincts---you've proven your travel savvy by simply asking this question.
Bon chance!

I am done. The infinite selection.