One of the loveliest
spots on earth & a
country without roads,
without guides, without
any facilities for
locomotion, where every
discovery must be
conquered at the price
of danger or fatigue & a
soil cut up with deep
ravines, crossed in
every way by lofty walls
of lava, and furrowed by
numerous torrents .
Thus one of George
Sand's characters
described the Haute-Loire,
the central
département of
the Massif Central ,
and it's a description
that could still be
applied to some of the
region. Thickly forested
and sliced by numerous
rivers and lakes, these
once volcanic uplands
are geologically the
oldest part of France
and culturally one of
the most firmly rooted
in the past. Industry
and tourism have made
few inroads here, and
the people remain rural
and taciturn, with an
enduring sense of
regional identity. They
also have a largely
unfounded reputation for
unfriendliness.
The Massif Central
takes up a huge portion
of the centre of France,
but only a handful of
towns have gained a
foothold in its rugged
terrain: Le Puy ,
spiked with theatrical
pinnacles of lava, is
the most compelling,
with its steep streets
and majestic cathedral;
the spa town of Vichy
has an antiquated
elegance and charm; even
heavily industrial
Clermont-Ferrand ,
the capital, has a
certain cachet in the
black volcanic stone of
its historic centre and
its stunning physical
setting beneath the
Puy de Dôme , a
1464-metre-high volcanic
plug. There is pleasure,
too, in the
unpretentious
provinciality of
Aurillac and in the
untouched medieval
architecture of smaller
places like Murat
, Besse ,
Salers , Orcival
, Sauveterre-de-Rouergue
, La Couvertoirade
and in the hugely
influential abbey of
Conques . But, above
all, this is a country
where the sights are
landscapes rather than
towns, churches and
museums.
The heart of the
region is the
Auvergne , a wild
and unexpected landscape
of extinct volcanoes,
stretching from the
grassy domes and craters
of the Monts-Dômes
to the eroded skylines
of the Monts-Dore
, and deeply ravined
Cantal mountains to
the rash of darkly
wooded pimples
surrounding Le Puy. It
is one of the poorest
regions in France and
has long remained
outside the main
national lines of
communication: much of
it is above 1000m in
height and snowbound in
winter, and it was only
recently that
construction began on an
autoroute through
the middle. There is
little arable land, just
thousands of acres of
upland pasture,
traditionally grazed by
sheep brought up from
the southern lowlands
for the summer. Nowadays,
cows far outnumber the
sheep, some raised for
beef and some still for
the production of
Auvergne's four great
cheeses
. The population has
emigrated for
generations, especially
to Paris, where the café
and restaurant trade has
long been in the hands
of Auvergnats. The same
flight of population has
affected the equally
infertile but beautiful
and more Mediterranean
southern part of the
region: the hills and
valleys of the
Cévennes , where
Robert Louis Stevenson
and his donkey made one
of the more famous
literary hikes in 1878.
Many of France's
greatest rivers rise in
the Massif Central: the
Dordogne in the
Monts-Dore, the Loire
on the slopes of the
Gerbier de Jonc in the
east, and in the
Cévennes the Lot
and the Tarn . It
is these last two rivers
which create the
distinctive character of
the southern parts of
the Massif Central,
dividing and defining
the special landscapes
of the causses ,
or limestone plateaux,
with their stupendous
gorges.
This is territory,
above all, for walkers
and lovers of the
outdoors , and
everywhere you go
tourist offices will
supply ideas and routes
for walks and bike
rides, both long and
short.
