Looking a bit too good

One of the big challenges of visiting places and writing about them for possible future visitors is striking a balance - should we be brutally honest if somewhere is, frankly, not all that lovely? What if it was raining when we visited, or we were tired and really it is a very nice place?

Likewise if someone writes an article for us how do we know if they are describing their local town as a visitor would see it, or through rose-tinted spectacles?

I seem to recall I’ve mentioned this problem before, but we were re-writing our article about one of our local towns (Villeneuve-sur-Lot, pictured above, see also photos of Villeneuve)  – which we know quite well, so it’s come back to mind again.

Just to be clear this isn’t just an issue with Villeneuve, I’m picking on them just because it’s local to us, and because in parts, such as the houses along the river shown in the picture, it is very picturesque, so it’s quite easy to take photos that make it look interesting to tourists. But to take that picture above you need to be on a busy new road bridge, between run-down houses and an unattractive 1960′s concrete office block.

I know towns that fall in the same ‘category’ in many parts of France – places with some interesting buildings and sights to see, often a scenic stretch of river to look at, but which are concealed behind rather a lot of, let’s say, buildings with limited tourist appeal. Or even streets that are frankly quite rough.

Places that are very nice to explore for an hour or two, but wouldn’t really make a great place to find yourself in a hotel for  fortnight. Pretty much everywhere, apart from a sprinkling perfect small villages, has both its attractions and its downside, it’s just a question of degree.

So what to do? We try to include comments and photos to give a balanced picture, but even cities like Paris can be made to look uninviting if you only show the scrappy bits, it doesn’t mean we are going to suggest people don’t go there…

That”s part of the reason why we have pages like ‘places near Villeneuve‘ on the site (for every place in France) – so that visitors can see other places of interest in the region to help decide whether it will be an interesting destination or not.

Is there a better solution? If so please let us know!

PS If you have already booked a holiday near Villeneuve for next year don’t rush off to cancel it, there are lots of very pretty villages to visit in the region (Pujols, Penne d’Agenais, Monflanquin, Villereal…) and loads of lovely scenery. Really it’s one of the best places you could visit - we live nearby and wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else!