A year in the Limousin: our 2026 round-up

It is October already, the evenings are drawing in, and it feels like a good moment to look back on what a year it has been around Le Dorat. Festivals came and went, an organ turned 150, and the summer tested everyone with its heat. Here is our round-up of 2026 so far.

A spring full of treasures

The year's first big local date was the spring vide-grenier on 26 April, when chiners spread their wares under the Halle aux Grains and along the lanes beneath the collegiate church. There is something wonderful about rummaging for old postcards of your own street.

A small festival with a big heart

In May the village of Veyrac, near Limoges, hosted the 38th Veyracomusies, the self styled biggest small festival in the region, with a warm rural programme headlined by Fatoumata Diawara and Rue Kétanou. It is exactly the kind of festival the Limousin does best: unhurried, friendly and thoroughly French.

Poetry in Bellac

July brought the 72nd Festival National de Bellac, the second oldest performing arts festival in France and a Bellac institution. This year it ran from 1 to 4 July under a theme of poetry and emancipation, with theatre, circus and concerts headlined by Natacha Atlas. Twelve kilometres away on a summer evening, it makes a perfect night out.

Our own streets

Le Dorat did itself proud too. The Foire de la Saint-Loup filled the Champ de Foire on 5 July with fairground rides, artisans and travelling merchants, the biggest traditional fair in the Haut Limousin. And all summer, from 13 June to 20 September, the Maison du Patrimoine celebrated 150 years since the great Cavaillé-Coll organ was dedicated in the collegiate church of Saint Pierre. If you have not heard that organ thunder under the Romanesque vaults, put it on your list.

The summer that wasn't

Not everything went to plan. Limoges' beloved Urbaka street arts festival, due in late June for its 37th edition, was cancelled as the department hit a record breaking red alert heatwave. The whole region shut its shutters, kept cool and waited for the storm. It was a reminder of what this corner of France quietly becomes in July: hot, golden and very still.

And coming up this winter

The year is not finished. The Christmas markets return to Limoges from 27 November through to 27 December, Bellac holds its own on 11 and 12 December, and the truffle markets begin. We will be here, wood smoke rising and the jacuzzi steaming, and if you fancy a winter escape, you know where to find us.