After a week aboard the Canal du Midi, we traded our floating home for a stone farmhouse near the tiny hamlet of Saint-Étienne-de-Lescattes in the hills of Occitanie.

If you’ve never heard of Saint-Étienne-de-Lescattes, don’t worry. Neither had I.

It’s one of those places that barely registers on a map, surrounded by vineyards, rolling countryside and quiet roads that seem to wander off in whichever direction takes their fancy. The sort of place where life appears to move at half speed, and after the previous week, that turned out to be exactly what we needed.

The original plan had been to use the farmhouse as a base to explore the region. Unfortunately, the South of France had other ideas.

The week on the canal had been far hotter than we expected. Day after day the temperature climbed into the mid-thirties and, despite the pleasures of life aboard the boat, the heat gradually drained our enthusiasm for doing much beyond steering, working locks and finding the next mooring.

Then, on the final day of the cruise, I managed to trip on a cobblestone dock and land heavily on my shoulder and ribs.

At first it didn’t seem too serious. I finished the day’s boating and assumed it was little more than bruising. By that evening, however, every movement reminded me that perhaps I had underestimated the impact. Sleeping became awkward, deep breaths were uncomfortable and even walking any distance required a bit more determination than usual.

As a result, our stay at the farmhouse became something rather different from what we had imagined.

Instead of rushing off every morning to visit every attraction within driving distance, we slowed down. Considerably.

Fortunately, rural France is a very pleasant place in which to do very little.

The farmhouse itself turned out to be one of the highlights of the stay. Built from local stone, it sat beside a medieval church in the tiny hamlet of Saint-Étienne-de-Lescattes. The property was arranged around a large enclosed courtyard protected by high stone walls. There was plenty of shade when you wanted it, but the courtyard could also become a sun trap, soaking up the warmth of the southern French sun.

The neighbouring church provided an occasional soundtrack. We mostly noticed the bell when we were outside, where it marked the hours and half-hours. Inside the thick stone walls of the farmhouse it faded into the background, becoming just another part of village life.

By the time we arrived, the weather had returned to something closer to normal. Temperatures in the mid-twenties were a welcome relief after the heat of the canal. It was warm enough to enjoy long afternoons outdoors, but comfortable enough that sitting with a book and a coffee no longer felt like an endurance event.

Given my bruised ribs and limited enthusiasm for energetic sightseeing, the farmhouse became a pleasant place to recover while still enjoying the experience of rural France. Louise was rather more adventurous than I was and explored more of the local area, while I was content to take things at a slower pace.

The days settled into a comfortable rhythm. We wandered local markets, returned with bags of fresh produce and spent more time cooking than sightseeing. One evening we made a beautiful mushroom risotto from local ingredients. Another night featured swordfish and calamari skewers. When the produce is this good, complicated recipes seem almost unnecessary.

When we weren’t cooking for ourselves, we explored the local restaurants scattered throughout the surrounding countryside. One of our favourite destinations was Sommières, a charming historic town where we enjoyed several evenings out.

What struck us throughout the region was how consistently good the food was. It didn’t seem to matter whether a restaurant looked modest or sophisticated. The ingredients were fresh, the menus seasonal and the meals invariably enjoyable. France appears to have established a remarkably high minimum standard when it comes to food.

We still managed a few excursions, however, and one of the most memorable was a visit to the Ardèche and the remarkable replica of the Chauvet Cave.

The original cave contains some of the oldest known examples of prehistoric art in the world. What makes it particularly extraordinary is that the entrance was sealed by a rockfall thousands of years ago, leaving the cave untouched by visitors for millennia. When it was rediscovered in 1994, archaeologists found an astonishingly well-preserved record of prehistoric life.

The cave paintings themselves are magnificent, but the cave also preserves evidence of the animals and people who used it. Particularly fascinating were the cave bears. Thousands of bear bones have been found inside, along with sleeping hollows worn into the cave floor where generations of bears hibernated. It appears that humans and cave bears shared the cave over long periods, largely because they used it at different times of the year.

The challenge, of course, was how to preserve something so fragile once the world knew it existed.

The French solution was ingenious. Rather than open the original cave to mass tourism and risk damaging it, they created a painstakingly accurate replica nearby. Every contour, every painting and every significant feature was reproduced using modern technology.

Normally I am a little sceptical of replicas. This one changed my mind. The level of detail was extraordinary, and it was easy to understand why heritage professionals from around the world have taken an interest in the project.

What was particularly interesting was learning that the techniques developed for Chauvet are being studied elsewhere, including by people involved in preserving Indigenous cultural heritage in Australia. The idea of creating highly accurate facsimiles allows important sites to be protected while still making them accessible to visitors and future generations. It seems an elegant solution to a difficult problem.

Looking back, our stay at Saint-Étienne-de-Lescattes wasn’t the holiday we had originally planned. The heat of the canal cruise and my encounter with a cobblestone dock certainly changed our plans.

Yet travel has a habit of replacing your plans with better stories.

Instead of racing from attraction to attraction, we spent time recovering, cooking, exploring local markets and enjoying a corner of rural France that we might otherwise have hurried through. We listened to church bells mark the passing hours, enjoyed memorable meals, explored one of the most fascinating archaeological sites in Europe and discovered that sometimes slowing down is not a compromise at all.

Not every memorable travel experience comes from doing more.

Sometimes it comes from doing less, and doing it in exactly the right place.