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La Bastide-Puylaurent is a popular base for walkers


Donkey tales V


ia Podiensis, Via Tolosana, Via Lemovicensis and Via Turonensis... For


centuries, pilgrims progressing towards the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain – or those who just like a good walk – have travelled along these paths. They are part of the network of pilgrimage routes on the Way of Saint James. Then there’s the Chemin


de Stevenson, a trail tracing the 19th-century Scottish writer’s journey described in his Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. Robert Louis and Modestine set off on a 12-day hike in September 1878. They traversed the Velay, a douce melange of landscapes of volcanic reliefs and high agricultural plateaux, then the small valleys, wild forests, pastures and marshland of the Gévaudan; they passed


cool springs and rounded granitic boulders of the bare Mont Lozère massif – with the intoxicating scent of yellow broom in spring, blue myrtles and purple heather heralding summer’s end – and on into Cévenol valleys where sweet chestnut tree forests plunge towards refreshing rivers and up again to sunny summits. Louis Stevenson started


from Monastier-sur-Gazeille in


Tracing the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson, Carolyn Reynier finds some lovely stops along the way


Haute-Loire. We’ll start off by looking at property in nearby Le Puy-en-Velay, capital of the Haute-Loire department, and where the modern day Stevenson trail begins. Built on an extinct volcano, Le Puy is a Pays d’Art et d’Histoire, famous for its lace and twinned with Tonbridge-Malling in Kent. The Notre-Dame cathedral ensemble and the Hôtel- Dieu are Unesco-classified


World Heritage of Humanity buildings. There’s cross- country skiing on the Meygal and Mézenc massifs plus downhill skiing at the family ski resort of Estables. Then we’ll visit three Lozère


villages along Stevenson’s route as he heads south towards what is now the Cévennes National Park. First, La Bastide-Puylaurent, an important stopover for pilgrims and hikers, is on the Allier river close to the Cistercian Notre-Dame des Neiges abbey. Then, Chasseradès, with its 12th-century church, viaduct and 17th-century washhouses. And finally, Le Bleymard, close to the source of the Lot river and the Roman spa at Bagnols- les-Bains. Louis Stevenson parts


The trails are ideal for mountain biking too – with stunning views like this one looking across to Polignac and its fortress, northwest of Le Puy-en-Velay


48 FRENCH PROPERTY NEWS: March/April 2025


company with the exhausted Modestine in St-Jean-de-Gard, and I’m beginning to hanker after the sea. So we’ll join the Régordane Way and finish our journey at the little pilgrimage town of St-Gilles on the edge of the Camargue in Gard. The façade of its Unesco- classified 12th-century abbatial church – originally founded five centuries earlier – is the largest sculptural ensemble of Romanesque art in the Languedoc region.


©LE PUY-EN-VELAY TOURISME


©BENOIT COLOMB/LOZÈRE/TOURISME


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