Discovering the Drôme

I’m not the biggest fan of nougat — the sickly-sweet, nutty confection invented in the 17th century in the south of France. So it’s hardly surprising that I had never heard of Montélimar, the birthplace of that chewy candy made from honey and almonds.

Not until our ancient but much-loved Citroen car — filled to the brim with three children, as many bikes and enough camping gear for a two week vacation — spluttered to a halt on the D133 just outside Montélimar on a sweltering Friday afternoon last August.

Having lived in France for more than six years, my husband and I weren’t too put out by the lack of garagistes who would accept work on a Friday afternoon. It was August after all. What we weren’t prepared for was the lack of any kind of rental car large enough for us and all our paraphernalia within a 60-mile radius.

But as frustrated as we were about spending three blistering days trapped in landlocked Montélimar — a stone’s throw from the A7 autoroute between the Mediterranean and Lyon — while waiting for our rent-a-minibus, we soon discovered an abundance of charm and beauty in this area of France that is largely overlooked.

Montélimar is in the Drôme, about one hour north of Avignon. Although the Drôme département is officially in the region of Rhône-Alpes, the southernmost tip of the area nestles neatly into Provence, earning it the nickname of La Drôme Provençale. With the nickname come many of the assets of the beautiful south of France.

Yet despite its countryside of lavender fields and olive groves beneath clear blue skies, the Drôme enjoys a much more modest property market than its more popular and well-known neighbor — a fact to which house hunters searching a home in the sun are slowly waking up.

Nathalie Combes, a real estate agent with Agence de la Tournelle, in Dieulefit, says property prices in the Drôme Provençale are much cheaper than those in the Luberon, just a short distance to the south. “People are now realizing that the Luberon is too expensive, and they are starting to climb a bit further north.

“We have a lot of French clients, from Marseille, Paris, Grenoble and Lyon, all looking for second homes. There are great transport links in the area, and it’s full of charm. The region also attracts the English, and buyers from Holland and Belgium, although I haven’t seen very many Americans yet.”

Dieulefit is some 20 miles east of Montélimar, in the center of Drôme Provençale. The picturesque village set among rolling green hills lies on the banks of the Jabron River and is famous for its pottery, which has been made in Dieulefit since Gallo-Roman times. But Dieulefit — literally, “God made it” — has been around much longer; according to legend, before creating the world, God first made a model, with an ideal landscape and a balmy climate, and it was from the clay of this lovely land that Adam was created.

Today, around the town, an authentic and fully renovated stone mas of more than 200 square meters will set you back between €450,000-500,000. Meanwhile, for those after a challenge, a more rustic and basic farmhouse of the same size can be found for between €200,000-300,000.

If village life is what you hanker after, then look no further than any one of the beautiful villages scattered throughout the gentle hills of the Drôme. Among them is Grignan, where one of the largest Renaissance châteaux in France was once home to Madame de Sévigné, in which she wrote some of her famous letters to her daughter.

Other special spots are often cited in lists of the most beautiful villages in France, including La Garde Adhémar, Poët-Laval and Montbrun les Bains.

“A maison de village without a garden in most of the villages would cost you around €250,000,” says Combes. “That’s considerably less than you’d pay in the Luberon, for example, but the house and the village will be pretty much the same.”

Montélimar itself is a thriving market town with much to offer, at least once you’re safely inside the rather unattractive periphery road that brings traffic in from the thunderous A7 autoroute. The second-largest town in the region after Valence, Montélimar is also identified as the “gateway to Provence,” with an impressive tree-lined Provençal allée that welcomes visitors to its center.

Undoubtedly it was the birth of nougat that put the town firmly on the map several hundred years ago, after a number of almond trees were brought to the area from Asia by a local resident, the late-16th-century pioneer agronomist Olivier de Serres. It didn’t take long for the almonds to be mixed with the region’s own honey, and so nougat was born.

The town has recently undergone significant urban renovation and the revamped Saint Martin’s area now offers first class accommodation and facilities more often found in economically thriving cities than in a town of around 35,000.

Prices in bustling Montélimar vary hugely. A stunning two bedroom house near the town center and the train station — Paris is only about three hours away on the high-speed TGV train — is currently on the market for €300,000, while an ideal six-room fixer-upper is priced at €125,000.

If you head farther north, leaving the green and purple hues of Provence behind, you will arrive in the upper region of the Drôme, known as the Drôme des Collines. Here the landscape is much wilder and the villages more remote. The area boasts France’s biggest nature reserve in the 42,000-acre Vercors National Park, which harbors a staggering range of flora and fauna. It also produces some of the country’s finest wines, Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage and Tain-l’Hermitage (all technically classified as Côtes du Rhône).

Prices in this more remote area of the Drôme are even more attractive. A three-bedroom villa near the small village of Hauterives is priced at €160,000 while a large villa with a swimming pool, set in extensive mature gardens, is being sold for €787,000.

A local taxi driver, who patiently drove us around while we were without a car, lamented that, for an area that has it all, it still languishes way behind its southern neighbor in the popularity stakes. “We’re near the Alps, we’re near the Mediterranean, we make arguably the best wine in France, but still we’re bypassed by most people heading south,” he said, shaking his head.

Of course that is one reason why prices have remained so affordable up to now. But real estate agent Combes predicts that the market will continue to pick up after what has turned out to be a buoyant autumn. “Prices have been down between 10 and 15 percent, but the market is definitely springing back. I’m not sure prices will move much, but there are certainly more clients than there were.”

Originally published in the November 2009 issue of France Today.