France
Flavigny-sur-Ozerain
Aniseed sweets made in a hilltop abbey, in the village that played the set of Chocolat.
The air smells of aniseed. Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, in France's Burgundy, makes its tiny sugar-coated sweets in the old Benedictine abbey at the crown of the village, and on warm days the scent drifts through the cobbled lanes like a signature the place cannot wash off. The film crew that chose it as the set for Chocolat understood the appeal — a hilltop village that looks and smells like something confected.
Flavigny sits on an isolated hilltop above the Ozerain valley in the Auxois, listed as a Plus Beau Village, with ramparts and gates around a village of stone houses that has barely grown in centuries. The Anis de Flavigny — a single aniseed rolled in layer after layer of sugar syrup until it becomes a smooth white pearl — has been made in the buildings of the Abbaye Saint-Pierre for centuries, and the factory opens its workshop and the abbey's Carolingian crypt to visitors, who leave with a tin. In 2000 the village stood in for the fictional town of Chocolat, and the square where Juliette Binoche opened her shop is recognisably the same. Walk the ramparts for the view across the plateau, then find the single café for Burgundy snails and a glass of the local white.
Solo
Tour the abbey workshop where the sweets are made, walk the ramparts with the valley below, then sit in the square where Chocolat was filmed. Flavigny works as a single, atmospheric half-day.
Couple
The aniseed-scented lanes, the abbey crypt, the rampart walk and a glass of Burgundy in the square — Flavigny compresses charm into a hilltop small enough to share without rushing.
- Aniseed sweets have been made in the old abbey for centuries — the village smells of aniseed on warm days.
- The film Chocolat used Flavigny as its set — the square is recognisable, and better in person.
- Rampart walks circle the hilltop with views across the Ozerain valley to Burgundy's rolling farmland.
- Small enough that an afternoon covers every lane, but atmospheric enough that you will want to stay until the light changes.
Anis de Flavigny — a single aniseed rolled in sugar for days until it becomes a smooth white pearl, straight from the abbey.
Burgundy snails in garlic-parsley butter plus a glass of the village's white at the village café.
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