Photo : B.navez / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Salers
Salers is a village in the Cantal perched at about 900 metres' altitude, on the Salers planèze, at the western edge of the great volcanic massif of the Cantal. It is among the Most Beautiful Villages of France. Lords are mentioned there as early as 1029. In 1586, the Huguenots tried to take the town during the Wars of Religion, and in 1666 the Grands Jours d'Auvergne condemned the baron and had his castle destroyed.
The village long lived on livestock farming and the trade in leather and wool. What remains is a set of dark-stone Renaissance houses, particularly around the Place Tyssandier-d'Escous, with their turrets and pepper-pot roofs. The Beffroi gate dates from the fifteenth century.
The church of Saint-Mathieu houses a polychrome Entombment dated 1495. Salers is also the name of a raw cow's-milk cheese and of a hardy breed of cattle from the region, which you meet in the surrounding meadows. The village today has about 310 inhabitants. It lives mainly from tourism and is easy to explore on foot, strolling along the cobbled streets.
