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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.