While ambling through quiet streets, you will find elegant buildings proving how well-off the inhabitants were in the past: the former granary to store salt and its turret or the Courbis’s private mansion (hôtel particulier). However, an expiatory altar (Autel taurobolique: altar to celebrate a sacrifice called Taurobole) will take you back to Antiquity, while some vestiges of a medieval gate will remind you of the walled city in the 12th century. The History of France is also written in Tain-l’Hermitage in the 14th century when King Charles V’s wedding at the Church Notre Dame de Tain sets the seal on the incorporation of the Dauphiné into France. Other monuments such as the Marc Seguin cable suspension bridge or the Chapelle of Larnage still show nowadays the technical, historical and social progress of the 19th century made here: the revolutionary technique of the wire cable, the building of suspension bridges and the creation of the first establishment dedicated to epileptics.
Tain l’Hermitage is also well-known for its famous AOP wines, Hermitage and Crozes Hermitage, belonging to the northern Côtes du Rhône. The Hermitage Hill is nowadays classified as a French national heritage: just take time to walk up to its summit where the Hermitage Chapel will offer you a breath-taking view on the Rhône Valley and the impressive terraced vineyards at your feet. A little train even drives up among the vines to offer you this viewpoint ! When back in town, take time to taste our wines in the famous wine cellars present in the centre.
Last but not least, the Valrhona Cité du Chocolat welcomes you on the Rhône bank for a delicious discovery : here learn everything that is hidden behind a chocolate square through all your senses, and mainly how to taste it ! This interactive place also offers a “full chocolate restaurant” that all chocolate-lovers will for sure enjoy ! The renowned brand Valrhona is exclusively produced in Tain l’Hermitage, but then exported through the whole world and used by the most famous Chefs : it would be a shame not to taste it !
