France
Salers
Lava-stone turrets above pastures where the cows match the dark red volcanic rock.
The cows are dark red and the turrets are dark grey and the pastures between them are an impossible green — Salers in France is a medieval market town built from volcanic lava-stone, sitting above meadows where the eponymous cattle breed has grazed since the 17th century. The cheese that bears the town's name tastes of every wildflower in those meadows.
Salers sits at 950 metres on the edge of the Cantal volcano massif, the largest stratovolcano in Europe by base area. The town's lava-stone architecture, predominantly 15th- and 16th-century, features turreted townhouses built by local magistrates and merchants — the Place Tyssandier d'Escous is ringed by these grey volcanic buildings. Salers cheese is a raw-milk pressed cheese produced exclusively from milk collected during the summer pasture season between April and November, aged for a minimum of three months in volcanic-stone caves. The Salers cattle breed, a hardy mahogany-red animal, has been raised in the region for centuries and is protected by an AOC designation for both the breed and the dairy products. The summit of Puy Mary, one of the highest peaks of the Cantal massif, is accessible from the nearby Pas de Peyrol pass.
Solo
The Tuesday market in the lava-stone square sells Salers cheese, Cantal sausage, and gentiane liqueur — the town's produce in concentrated form. Walk to the Puy Mary summit for the volcanic panorama and return to a truffade supper.
Couple
The volcanic-stone turrets glow warm in evening light while the red cattle graze the slopes below — the colour coordination between architecture and landscape feels designed. Cheese tasted in the cellars where it aged adds the terroir.
- Dark-red Salers cows graze volcanic pastures beneath lava-stone turrets — the animals match the architecture.
- The cheese is raw-milk, pressed, and aged in volcanic caves — each wheel tastes of the wildflowers the cows ate.
- Renaissance mansions with corner turrets line the central square — built on cattle wealth and still standing on it.
- The Puy Mary volcano is a short drive away — the summit panorama covers the entire Cantal chain.
Salers cheese — raw-milk, pressed, aged in volcanic caves, tasting of wildflowers and earth.
Truffade — sliced potatoes fried with young Tomme cheese until molten and crusty.
Pedra de Lume
Cape Verde
Float in a salt lake inside an extinct volcano, crater walls rising on every side.
Vale do Paúl
Cape Verde
Sugarcane terraces spill down a volcanic crater into the greenest valley in the archipelago.
Monastery of St. Anthony
Egypt
Earth's oldest inhabited monastery, wedged into a Red Sea mountain canyon since the fourth century.
Hoang Su Phi
Vietnam
Rice terraces so vertiginous they look like topographical maps carved directly into the sky.
Sénanque Abbey
France
Cistercian silence surrounded by lavender rows so purple they vibrate in the June heat.
Mont-Saint-Michel
France
A granite abbey rising from quicksand flats where the tide races in faster than horses.
Étretat
France
Chalk arches punched through sea cliffs like cathedral windows opening onto the Channel.
Porquerolles
France
Car-free island trails through umbrella pines to beaches with Caribbean water and no crowd.