Rugby, truffles, and duck confit — Corrèze's most robust city, where the south of France really begins
Brive-la-Gaillarde is a market town in the Corrèze (the 'forgotten département' between the Dordogne and Lot rivers) with an outsized reputation for food and rugby. The Saturday market in the city centre draws producers from across the Corrèze with walnuts, truffles (Périgord black truffle, Tuber melanosporum), duck confit, foie gras, cèpe mushrooms, and Brive's signature andouillette. The CA Brive rugby team is one of the most supported clubs in France; match days transform the city. The Brive Book Fair (La Foire du Livre de Brive) is France's most popular literary fair — an enormous annual…
Brive's name derives from the Latin Briva ('bridge') — it grew at a river crossing on the Roman road from Lyon to Bordeaux. The 'Gaillarde' (meaning 'hardy' or 'bold') was added in the medieval period as a nickname for the city's fighting character. Brive was the first city liberated from Nazi occupation in France (15 August 1944 — the same day as the Allied landing in Provence), acting largely through the Corrèze Resistance network led by locals. The Collège abbatial de Saint-Martin, an 11th-century Romanesque church in the city centre, preserves the tomb of Saint Martin de Vertou.