How to Reach La Maison de la Grange and Explore the Creuse
One of the pleasures of travelling independently in France is discovering places that are not on the standard tour-bus circuit. It can also involve staring at a transport map and wondering why the charming village you want to visit appears to have been deliberately hidden from civilization. La Maison de la Grange is in Saint-Martial-le-Mont, in the rural heart of the Creuse, and getting here without arriving in your own car is entirely possible. Once here, however, having access to a car opens up considerably more of this beautiful and still relatively undiscovered part of France.
Coming to the Creuse by train
For international visitors arriving through Paris, one of the simplest options is to take the train south from Paris-Austerlitz to La Souterraine. SNCF currently operates direct Intercités services, with the fastest journeys taking about 2 hours 50 minutes.
Check Paris–La Souterraine trains with SNCF Connect
La Souterraine is therefore our preferred railway meeting point for guests travelling without a car. La Maison de la Grange offers pre-arranged pickup and drop-off from La Souterraine station for €40 per person, each way. You can step off the train and leave the final rural portion of the journey to us rather than attempting an increasingly imaginative sequence of local connections.
Limoges is another useful gateway, particularly for travellers incorporating our part of France into a longer journey through Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Train and flight schedules change seasonally, so we strongly recommend checking current connections before booking rather than relying on last year’s timetable.
Flying into Limoges
For travellers arriving by air, Limoges Airport can be considerably less intimidating than collecting a rental car at Paris Charles de Gaulle or Orly and immediately being introduced to French autoroutes, tolls, interchanges and several thousand Parisians who apparently have somewhere extremely urgent to be.
We offer pre-arranged transfers between Limoges Airport and La Maison de la Grange for €90 each way, making it possible to fly into the region and come directly to Saint-Martial-le-Mont without renting a car at the airport.
Flight routes at Limoges are limited and seasonal, particularly international services, so guests should check the airport’s current schedule when planning their trip rather than assuming that a particular UK or French domestic route operates year-round.
Why isn’t there a train to every little town anymore?
It is tempting to say that France simply decided to “limit public transportation,” but the history is more complicated.
France still has an enormous railway network, but its lightly used rural lines have faced decades of difficult decisions about maintenance, investment and passenger numbers. The Cour des comptes notes that more than 11,000 km of the national network consists of low-traffic lines and that parts of the conventional railway network are old and increasingly expensive to maintain.
This is particularly relevant in the Creuse. The Guéret–Felletin TER line was scheduled to cease rail operations from August 2025 because of the condition of the infrastructure. A French Senate discussion described the problem as part of a wider challenge facing the petites lignes ferroviaires, where responsibility for regeneration involves difficult funding choices between the State, SNCF Réseau and the regions.
So there was no single moment when France decided that rural people had enjoyed enough trains. It has been a long process involving declining use on some rural lines, ageing infrastructure, high maintenance and renewal costs, changing regional responsibilities and decisions about whether limited transport funding should support rail, replacement coaches or other forms of mobility. Nouvelle-Aquitaine continues to wrestle with precisely these questions.
For visitors, the practical consequence is simpler: public transport can get you into the wider region, but a car remains the easiest way to explore rural Creuse independently.
Nervous about driving in France? The Creuse is a rather nice place to start
If your concern is not having a licence but actually driving in France, rural Creuse is a very different proposition from driving out of central Paris.
Once you are here, much of your exploring takes place on rural departmental roads linking villages, forests, fields and river valleys. The roads can be narrow and winding, and you should naturally drive cautiously, but they are also part of the experience. Around the next bend might be a château, a medieval bridge, a herd of Limousin cattle, a village café or a view across the Creuse valley that causes everyone in the car to become suddenly interested in photography.
A car also gives you the freedom to build your day around markets, brocantes, cafés, châteaux, museums, historic villages, restaurants and walking trails, rather than around the last bus home.
Rent locally instead of driving all the way from Paris
There is another option that many overseas visitors overlook: travel most of the way here without a car and rent one locally.
E.Leclerc Location in Guéret offers both passenger cars and utility vehicles from its rental location at 36–40 rue du Berry in Guéret.
This can be a much gentler introduction to driving in France than renting at CDG or Orly, negotiating the Paris airport road system, joining the autoroute and paying for several hours of motorway driving before you have seen anything resembling the France you actually came to visit.
Pick up a small car locally and suddenly the Creuse becomes your map rather than your obstacle.
What can you discover by car?
Quite a lot.
Nearby Ahun has more than 2,000 years of history. The Roman settlement of Acitodumum stood at an important crossroads on the Roman route connecting Lyon and Saintes, and archaeological remains can still be seen in the town’s lapidary garden.
A short distance away is Moutier-d’Ahun, one of the gems of the Creuse valley. Its former Benedictine monastery dates back to 997, while its abbey church contains extraordinary 17th-century Baroque woodwork. Below the village, the Creuse passes beneath its medieval bridge, and walking paths follow the river toward Chantemille.
Further exploring can take you to Busseau-sur-Creuse and its great railway viaduct, the extraordinary stone sculptures of the village of Masgot, the painted church at Sous-Parsat, and the villages and landscapes between them. Creuse Tourisme even proposes a 58.4-km driving circuit connecting Ahun, Moutier-d’Ahun, Busseau-sur-Creuse, Masgot, La Chapelle-Saint-Martial and Sous-Parsat.
And then there are Aubusson and Felletin, with their internationally important tapestry heritage, galleries, workshops and markets, as well as Guéret, Boussac and the smaller villages scattered across the department.
You don’t necessarily need a car every day
One of the advantages of staying in Saint-Martial-le-Mont is that some of the Creuse experience begins at the front door.
The Saint-Martial-le-Mont heritage circuit is an easy walking loop of approximately 3.5 km, taking about an hour and passing 14 points of interest, old lanes and chemins creux. It crosses the Chézades stream twice and includes access to a picnic area beside the Creuse.
From the village you can descend toward the river, where the landscape opens across the Creuse valley toward Saint-Médard-la-Rochette. Near the church, there is even a Roman column, while the church itself contains an 18th-century Cordovan-leather altar frontal.
For more ambitious walkers, the Ahun and Creuse Valley circuit follows the river through the wider landscape, connecting the valley around Ahun and Moutier-d’Ahun and crossing the Creuse at Saint-Martial-le-Mont.
The best solution may be a little of everything
For guests who don’t want to drive all the way from Paris, a Creuse holiday doesn’t need to be an all-or-nothing choice between public transport and renting a car.
A very practical itinerary is:
- Arrive in Paris and take the direct Intercités from Paris-Austerlitz to La Souterraine.
- Arrange our pickup from La Souterraine to La Maison de la Grange.
- Spend a day settling in, walking Saint-Martial-le-Mont and enjoying the house and Table d’Hôtes.
- Rent a small car locally for the days when you want to explore Aubusson, Felletin, Boussac, Guéret, châteaux, markets and the more remote countryside.
- Return the car locally and arrange your transfer back to the station for the journey onward.
Alternatively, fly into Limoges and arrange our airport transfer directly to the chambres d’hôtes.
It takes a little more planning than stepping off a tour bus, certainly. But that is also rather the point of coming to the Creuse. This is a place to follow a winding road because you noticed an old château on a hill, stop at a village market because something smells wonderful, walk beside the Creuse, discover a brocante you hadn’t planned to visit and spend considerably longer over lunch than anticipated.
The Creuse isn’t difficult to reach. It simply rewards travellers who don’t mind going a little beyond the usual route.