Noyers-sur-Serein

The village hides behind its medieval gates on a bend of the River Serein, its half-timbered houses and carved lintels preserved not by grand restoration but by being left alone. Noyers-sur-Serein, in France's northern Burgundy, is a place where the sound is river water and, in summer, chamber music drifting out of a courtyard concert into the lanes.

Noyers sits almost as an island inside a meander of the Serein in northern Burgundy, two hours from Paris and a short drive from Chablis, entered through fortified gates with towers from the medieval walls still standing along the river. The squares and lanes are edged with half-timbered houses and stone ones with pillars and pinnacles, many of the timber ones carrying carved wooden lintels — trades, beasts and saints cut into the beams by the people who lived there. It holds the Plus Beaux Villages listing, and is small enough to know completely in an afternoon. In summer the Rencontres Musicales bring young musicians to play Brahms, Schubert and Chopin in the church and the courtyards, the stone doing the acoustics.