Erstwhile: July 2013

Florac

Went walking in the Cevennes for five days at the end of June. The walk is the GR70 and starts at Le Puy-en-Velay and ends at St Jean du Gard. It runs through 4 departments - Haute Loire, Ardeche, Lozere and Gard. It is known as Le Chemin de Stevenson after Robert Louis Stevenson who walked it in or about 1870 and wrote an inconsequential but mercifully short book about it: Travels with a donkey. The local tourism industry has milked the Stevenson connection for all it is worth, with restaurants, gites and gift shops named for him and his donkey, Modestine. Obviously the route and surroundings have changed considerably since Stevenson’s time but it is still a delightful walk. I started in the middle at La Bastide. Took the train from Paris, changing at Clermon-Ferrand. I stayed at La Grand’Halte which was cheap and perfectly satisfactory and gave me a dormitory to myself. The area is famous for its chestnuts so I chose a chestnut dish for my dessert. It proved to be a harmless concoction out of some industrial kitchen.

Chasserades station

Wildflowers

I stopped for the night at a gite just north of the village of Les Alpiers. The gite was a large building with good views over a wide valley, run by a Dutch woman who had been there for thirty years. The meal was spectacular, about a dozen of us around a large table on a first floor covered-in terrace. 5 courses, each excellent. The Dutchwoman was scathing about tourists but generous in her praise of walkers, ‘randonneurs.’ Tourists all complained there was “nothing to do” (why would there be in one of the least populated areas of France?) while randoneurs just enjoyed the solitude and anyway were too tired to complain. This place alone was worth the walk. Again I had a dormitory to myself. There is alternative accommodation in tepees available in the village.

Les Alpiers

Next day an easy climb up to the highest point of the walk - Le Sommets de Finniels (1699m). The top of the hill was exposed to a strong cold wind so I did not linger.

Le sommet

However, I did see my first donkey being used as a pack animal - led by an embarrassed-looking walker who was probably photographed by everyone he encountered. The publicity material for the walk makes much of the possibility of hiring a donkey for those who are too lazy or infirm to carry their own pack but I suspect leading a donkey might be harder work than carrying your own things. Certainly Stevenson had to beat his donkey to get it to move, once resorted to carrying his own portmanteau when it refused and only got it to perform its duties when he equipped himself with a sharp-pointed stick, technically a goad. However to add a little colour to his narrative he gave the animal a name - Modestine - and hey presto, a legend was born.

The rest of the walk was easy and picturesque, culminating in a pleasant descent to Pont le Montvert in the Tarn valley. The first house in the town had a welcome sign outside - Un con qui marche va plus loins qu’un intellectuel assis. Loosely translated : A fool who walks goes further than an intellectual on his backside. That’s me I thought: un con qui marche. I found a bed at the Gite Municipaux. The rooms were named for local flowers: mine was easy to remember: Pensees ( pansies). There were three beds in the room, two taken by a man and a woman. I had a few beers outside a bar overlooking the town and the river, an exquisite view of stone houses and a mediaeval bridge, the very bridge where a recalcitrant protestant, one Esprit Seguier Seguier was burned alive (brule vif) in July 2004.

Cow

Pont-le-Montvert

The next day’s walk was pleasant and easy through a mixture of gentle hills, cow pasture and forest. Stopped for a beer just before Chasserades and admired the railway viaduct. The railway is the highest in France outside the Pyrenees. I stopped for the night at a gite just north of the village of Les Alpiers. The gite was a large building with good views over a wide valley, run by a Dutch woman who had been there for thirty years. The meal was spectacular, about a dozen of us around a large table on a first floor covered-in terrace. 5 courses, each excellent. The Dutchwoman was scathing about tourists but generous in her praise of walkers, ‘randonneurs.’ Tourists all complained there was “nothing to do” (why would there be in one of the least populated areas of France?) while randoneurs just enjoyed the solitude and anyway were too tired to complain. This place alone was worth the walk. Again I had a dormitory to myself. There is alternative accommodation in tepees available in the village.