Petites Cités de Caractère de France
Petites Cités de Caractère is a French heritage label given to small historic towns — under 6,000 people — whose architecture is dense, coherent and protected, and whose councils are actively maintaining it.
The association was founded in Brittany in 1976 by Jean-Bernard Vighetti, and has since spread to the Loire valley, Poitou-Charentes, Champagne-Ardenne, Normandy, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Occitanie and even Provence. Around 200 towns now hold the label.
What it means
To be admitted, a town must:
- have fewer than 6,000 inhabitants and the historic function of a town rather than a village — a market, a court, a fortress, a port
- hold protected status: Monument Historique listing, a Zone de Protection du Patrimoine Architectural, or a Plan de Sauvegarde et de Mise en Valeur
- have a high enough density of historic building to form a coherent whole, not a single monument in a modern town
- run an active programme of conservation and public presentation
The label is reviewed periodically and towns can lose it.
How it differs from Plus Beaux Villages
The two labels are often confused. Les Plus Beaux Villages de France selects villages on beauty and setting, and it is a national association with a tight, heavily promoted list. Petites Cités de Caractère selects small towns on the strength and coherence of their built heritage, region by region.
In practice the second list is the more useful of the two for anyone who wants to avoid crowds. The towns on it are working places with shops, cafés and residents rather than showpieces, and almost none of them appear in a standard itinerary.
Where they are
Brittany
Where the label began, and still the densest concentration.
- Côtes-d’Armor — Jugon-les-Lacs, La Roche-Derrien, Léhon, Moncontour, Quintin, Pontrieux, Tréguier, Châtelaudren
- Finistère — Guerlesquin, Le Faou, Locronan, Pont-Croix, Roscoff
- Ille-et-Vilaine — Bazouges-la-Pérouse, Bécherel, Combourg, Châteaugiron
- Morbihan — Guémené-sur-Scorff, Josselin, La Roche-Bernard, Malestroit, Rochefort-en-Terre
Locronan, Tréguier, Josselin and Rochefort-en-Terre are the ones most people have heard of; Pontrieux, with its washhouses along the Trieux, and Bécherel, a town of second-hand bookshops, are the sort of find the label exists for.
Normandy
- Calvados — Touques
- Manche — Bricquebec, Saint-Pair-sur-Mer
- Orne — Bellême, Écouché, La Perrière, Le Sap, Saint-Céneri-le-Gérei
Grand Est
- Alsace — Bouxwiller
- Ardennes — Rocroi, Mouzon
- Aube — Bar-sur-Seine, Ervy-le-Châtel, Essoyes, Les Riceys, Mussy-sur-Seine
- Marne — Aÿ, Cormicy, Sainte-Ménehould, Sézanne
- Meuse — Saint-Mihiel
- Moselle — Hombourg-Haut, Vic-sur-Seille
- Haute-Marne — Arc-en-Barrois, Bourmont, Châteauvillain, Joinville, Montsaugeon, Vignory
- Vosges — Châtillon-sur-Saône, Plombières-les-Bains, Senones
Rocroi is a star-shaped Vauban fortress town; Essoyes was Renoir
‘s village and his studio is open; Aÿ and Les Riceys are Champagne villages, the second holding three appellations at once.
Loire valley, Poitou and the west
The label is strong across the Pays de la Loire, Centre-Val de Loire and Nouvelle-Aquitaine, where it covers river towns and old market centres away from the château circuit.
The south
The newest regional groups are in Occitanie and Provence, still small. The equivalent role in the south is largely played by the Plus Beaux Villages list, which is much denser there.
How to use the list
Treat it as a filter for a region you are already going to, not as an itinerary of its own — the towns are scattered. A day of driving in the Côtes-d’Armor or the Haute-Marne with three or four of them strung together is a good way to see a part of France that the main routes miss entirely.
Most have a marked walking circuit through the old centre, a tourist office open in season, and somewhere to eat. Very few have a hotel.
See also
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