Walking in the Cevennes. Janette Norton

      INTRODUCTION

      In my bedroom in the large rambling house where I grew up was a shelf full of an odd assortment of books, old and new. It was not until my early teens that I noticed a small, insignificant book entitled Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson. This was my first introduction to a mysterious region of wild rolling hills and gorges in southern France. At the time I cared little about the Cevennes, but was more interested in the antics of a stubborn small donkey called Modestine, who sometimes consented to carry the few belongings of a then unknown Scottish student as he wound his way up and down dale.

      Much later in life I reread the same little book, and it was then that I decided to explore the region on foot and visit some of the places so vividly described by Stevenson. Of course much has changed: roads have been built, towns have grown in size and tourism is now the main economic resource. Yet most of the landscape remains hauntingly wild and desolate. Many of the villages Stevenson walked through are now crumbling ruins, as many of the people, unable to survive by agriculture, left at the turn of the 19th century. In 1879 Stevenson encountered more people on his travels through the Cevennes than I did on mine!

      My first Cevennes experience was a four-day circular walk in February. Although I got lost and very cold – not knowing how winter lingers in this rough upland country – the subtle magic of the area, steeped in historical conflict and economic hardship, fascinated me, and I knew I would eventually return to find out more.

      It was not until many years later that I could go back and write a walking book, basing myself in two little towns, one to the north and the other to the south of the Cevennes National Park. The two areas are quite different – the south gentler and covered in chestnut trees, the north bleak open moorland and deep gorges. Insidiously the fascination of walking and discovering this remote countryside became an obsession and a pleasure, shared as always by my faithful team of walking companions.

The Cevennes

      When I tell people that I am walking in the Cevennes they often look rather puzzled – some fish for the exact location by pretending they know where it is; others know the Cevennes is somewhere in France; the less inhibited come straight out and say ‘Where on earth is it?’

      The Cevennes is on the southern end of the Massif Central area of France, to the west of Provence and north of the coastal town of Montpellier, but where the area begins and ends is not clear because it is not a definite département (county). The southern part belongs to the Département d’Herault, the east to the Rhône-Alpes and the Gard, and the whole region, which extends from north of the Lozère to the Spanish border, is called Languedoc/Roussillon. The real Cevennes is such a criss-cross of narrow valleys and wild upland country that it does not even have a large town at its centre. Alès, in the southeast, is the administrative capital, but is on the very perimeter of the Cevennes proper. The two dominant mountainous regions are Mont Aigoual and the more northern Mont Lozère, both part of the newly created Cevennes National Park. They are bounded in the west by four upland plateaux called causses: (from north to south) Sauveterre, Méjean, Noir and Larzac; these are separated by deep gorges, the most northern being the famous Gorges du Tarn. To the south is the leafy Arre valley and the Mediterranean.

      Why the Cevennes is so little known is something of an enigma, as only the Rhône valley separates the region from Provence, the most visited area of France. But the Cevennes is so different that it could be worlds away. In place of cosy hilltop villages, the Cevennes landscape is harsh, mountainous and deserted. The weather is more extreme – the winters are cold and windblown, snow often covering the higher slopes, and the summers are dry and hot. This is not a place to appeal to the well-heeled retirement crowd or the casual tourist. The Cevennes attracts those who have a taste for a more rugged and subtle landscape – the mysterious emptiness of its endless hillsides that look like the blue crests of waves rolling to a misty horizon, the deep dark gorges and flat, stark plains resembling the Russian steppes. The Cevenese people are dour and taciturn until you get to know them but also independent and tough, with a devotion to a Calvinistic faith that sets them apart from neighbouring regions.

      In the guidebook I have split the walking areas into two – north and south of the national park, the boundary being the Mont Aigoual. In the south I stayed in a tiny huddle of houses called Loves, set in a dense chestnut forest 3km up a winding road near the town of Le Vigan. Florac on the river Tarnon was my centre for the northern walks and the starting point of my tour of Mont Lozère.

      Most of the walks undertaken are within one hour’s drive from the towns of Le Vigan and Florac and are well signposted. There are no paths going across private land (so walkers avoid being diverted by irate landowners), and fewer habitations mean fewer farms with yappy dogs! When you walk here you rarely meet other people or stumble on habitation – you get mesmerised by the emptiness of the country, by the endless hills stretching into nowhere and the wonderful feeling of being really alone – a rare pleasure in this constantly growing bustle of Europe.

Southern Cevennes (Walks 1–16)

      The southern region, known as the Cevennes Meridionales, with the small town of Le Vigan in the Arre valley, has a Mediterranean character. Olives, vines and a variety of fruit trees are grown on the lower south-facing slopes, and the once useful mulberry trees still flourish, together with the chestnut trees at a higher altitude. The main town is Le Vigan, with 4500 inhabitants, situated on the southern side of the Mont Aigoual. It is an authentic, lively little town, the centre for a large rural area which has happily escaped being smartened up and given over exclusively to tourism. Although it, too, suffered from the decline in the silkworm industry at the end of the 19th century, it managed to continue the tradition by producing stockings, scarves and other textile products thanks to the installation of a large factory. The river Arre meanders through the town, spanned by a magnificent old Roman bridge, and in the vicinity is the Musée Cévenol, which gives a fascinating insight into the rural industries and culture of the region (see Walk 1 for opening times and further information).

      A few kilometres southwards is the Blandas Causse (upland plateau), which always comes as a surprise, as the switch from green hills to arid limestone plain is unexpected. It has a curious ring of stones rather like a mini-Stonehenge. These are unprotected and unpublicised, but if you see them you can just stop the car and wander around! Further on this flat region is cut in two by the winding Vis river (see Walk 5 for further information).