Where to stay in Auvergne: the right base for exploring

To visit Auvergne, the best base comes down to three names: Murol, Besse and Chambon-sur-Lac. This little triangle sits at the foot of the Massif du Sancy: from Murol, allow about 40 minutes to Puy de Dôme, about 50 minutes to Vulcania, about 25 minutes to Le Mont-Dore and about 20 minutes to Lac Pavin. You unpack once, head out on day trips in every direction, and never drive the same road twice. If your plans include the Cantal, add a second base in Salers. And if you're set on sleeping in a city, it's Clermont-Ferrand: the most central for the volcanoes. We explain it all, with the minutes to back it up.

01The essentials in 30 seconds

• One base: the Murol, Besse, Chambon-sur-Lac triangle. Central, at the foot of the Sancy: everything is a day trip, never more than an hour's drive away (except the Cantal).
• Two bases: add Salers, on the Cantal side, for Puy Mary and the ridges. It's what we recommend for a week or more, as in our one-week itinerary in Auvergne.
• In a city: Clermont-Ferrand. Restaurants, nightlife, the station, and Puy de Dôme about 25 minutes away. The trade-off: the Sancy is about 1 hour away and the Cantal about 2 hours.
• Without a car: Clermont-Ferrand, as the station decides where you stay. We go through the options below.

To see it all at a glance, open our interactive map of Auvergne: the distances speak for themselves.

02Why the Murol, Besse, Chambon-sur-Lac triangle

Look at a map. The sights everyone comes to see in Auvergne are concentrated in a strip of about forty kilometres from north to south: the Chaîne des Puys with Puy de Dôme and Vulcania at the top, the Massif du Sancy in the middle, the lakes (Chambon, Pavin, Guéry) all around. The Murol, Besse, Chambon-sur-Lac triangle sits at the foot of the Sancy, with Lac Chambon and Lac Pavin within its communes.

In practice, from Murol:

• Puy de Dôme (Panoramique des Dômes station, in Orcines): about 40 minutes
• Vulcania: about 50 minutes
• Le Mont-Dore and the foot of the Sancy: about 25 minutes
• Lac Pavin: about 20 minutes (about 10 minutes from Besse)
• Super-Besse: about 25 minutes (about 15 minutes from Besse)

Five sights within an hour, from the same bedroom. Clermont puts the Chaîne des Puys on its doorstep and leaves the Sancy a full hour away. Le Mont-Dore hugs the Sancy but takes you away from the lakes. The triangle covers all three.

The reflex is to sleep in Clermont. Base yourself in Murol instead: your days start half an hour earlier on the trails and end half an hour later on a terrace. That's no small detail: over four days, that's half a day gained.

The three villages each have their own character, and frankly all three are as good as each other as a base:

• Murol: the most central and the liveliest in summer, with its medieval castle planted on a rocky peak and Lac Chambon right next door.
• Besse: our favourite for the village itself, all in dark lava stone. It's also the gateway to Lac Pavin and Super-Besse.
• Chambon-sur-Lac: the quietest, right on the lake shore, 7 km from the entrance to the Chaudefour valley. The walkers' choice.

If you're only staying a few days, this triangle is more than enough: our itineraries Auvergne in 3 days and weekend in Auvergne are in fact built around this idea of a fixed base.

03The second base: Salers or Le Puy-en-Velay, depending on your plans

A stay of a week or more deserves two bases. The question is which one to add, and the answer depends entirely on your plans.

Salers, if the Cantal is on the menu

Puy Mary and the Cantal ridges are about 1 hour 30 from the Murol-Besse triangle. Doable as a day trip, but frustrating: you spend 3 hours in the car for half a day there. The right approach: 2 or 3 nights in Salers, one of the Plus Beaux Villages de France (the Most Beautiful Villages of France), with its volcanic-stone houses and its ramparts. From there, the Pas de Peyrol (the foot of Puy Mary) is about 35 minutes away along the ridge road, one of the finest roads we know of in France.

We've prepared a complete guide to where to stay in Salers, and if you're still unsure about your Cantal plans, our weekend in the Cantal lays the groundwork.

Le Puy-en-Velay, if you're heading east

Le Puy-en-Velay is a memorable stop: the cathedral, the volcanic rocks topped with chapels, the start of the Way of St James. But it's about 2 hours 15 from the Sancy triangle. It's not a day trip, it's a change of base. Fit it in at the end of your stay, on the way back south or east, with 1 or 2 nights there. Our guide to where to stay in Le Puy-en-Velay helps you choose the district.

If you want to link both approaches (Sancy, then Cantal, then Velay), you'll find the complete loop in our road trip in Auvergne.

04The right base for your profile

Families

The triangle, without hesitation, ideally on the Murol or Chambon-sur-Lac side: Lac Chambon has a beach with facilities, the Château de Murol puts on activities in season, and Vulcania fills a whole day. Short distances change everything with children: nobody melts down in the car. We've gathered our best addresses and activities in the Auvergne with the family guide, and to make it special, take a look at the region's unusual places to stay: sleeping in a cabin or a bubble is still the memory children talk about when school starts again.

Hikers

Chambon-sur-Lac or Besse. From Chambon, the Chaudefour valley is 7 km away by road, then everything is done on foot. From Besse, Lac Pavin and the summer pastures of the Cézallier are a quarter of an hour away. Le Mont-Dore also works very well: the Sancy trails start from the village, and after the effort, the spa-resort atmosphere has its charm (our guide to where to stay in Le Mont-Dore details the areas). For a second highlight, switch to Salers and the Cantal ridges: Puy Mary is worth the trip all on its own.

Spas and relaxation

Three options, three atmospheres. Le Mont-Dore for full mountain immersion, with its thermal baths and its old-style resort architecture. La Bourboule, its neighbour, more family-oriented and gentler, about 35 minutes from Murol: we tell you what to do in La Bourboule. And Vichy, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site among the Great Spa Towns of Europe, for the urban and elegant version: parks on the banks of the Allier, the opera house, market halls. Allow about 1 hour from Clermont, and be aware that Vichy is a stay in itself rather than a base for the volcanoes. Our guide to where to stay in Vichy covers each district.

Without a car: the station dictates the base

Auvergne without a car takes organisation, and it can be done. The real gateway is Clermont-Ferrand station, with direct trains from Paris and Lyon. Your base will therefore be Clermont: our guide to where to stay in Clermont-Ferrand favours addresses close to the station and the centre.

From Clermont-Ferrand station, the regional coach line P46 serves La Bourboule and Le Mont-Dore every day, in about 1 hour 30 (the railway no longer carries passengers, the road has taken over). Le Mont-Dore can therefore serve as a second base without a car: once there, the hikes start on foot from the village. For Puy de Dôme, the summit is reached by the Panoramique des Dômes rack railway, from Orcines: the T2C network's bus line P36 takes you there from Chamalières, all year round, weekends included. From the station, allow for one change.

05Driving times from each base

The table that settles the arguments. Driving times, rounded, excluding summer traffic and winter conditions.

Two ways to read it. Row by row: from the triangle, the Sancy is about half an hour away and the two sights of the Chaîne des Puys fit within the hour. From Clermont, it's the other way round: the Chaîne des Puys is on the doorstep, the Sancy takes a full hour. Column by column: Puy Mary is only really comfortable from Salers. That's the whole logic of the two bases.

06The classic mistakes

Sleeping in Clermont to see the Cantal. The most common mistake. About 2 hours there and the same back: 4 hours of driving for a day at Puy Mary, with the pass to climb in the middle. Book a room in Salers, and you'll gain an evening in the village rather than on the road.

Squeezing Le Puy-en-Velay into a day trip from the Sancy. More than two hours' drive each way from Chambon-sur-Lac. Le Puy is a place to stay the night, not to rush through.

Changing accommodation every night. The road-trip reflex, appealing on paper, exhausting in real life: suitcases, check-in inspections, the food shopping all over again. The region is compact enough to fit into one or two bases. Keep the touring approach for the big loops.

Thinking in kilometres. In the mountains, the average quickly drops below 50 km/h. Thirty kilometres of hairpins can take 40 minutes. Rely on the minutes in this table, not on the odometer.

Treating the shoulder season like high season. Resorts like Super-Besse tick over between seasons, some village shops close, and the road to the Pas de Peyrol is closed all winter, from the first snows until the end of April or the start of May. In the shoulder season, aim for the lakes and valleys rather than the resorts and passes.