From valley to valley – between Gardon and Tarnon

2 steps

1. 

   Hiking on foot

   Rousses

   From valley to valley – between Gardon and Tarnon (day 1)

   Agriculture and livestock farming

   Architecture and village

   Water and geology

   • Difficult
   • 6h
   • 16,7km
   • +559m

2. 

   Hiking on foot

   Saint-André-de-Valborgne

   From valley to valley – between Gardon and Tarnon (day 2)

   Agriculture and livestock farming

   Architecture and village

   Causses and Cévennes / UNESCO

   Water and geology

   Fauna and flora

   Forest

   History and culture

   • Difficult
   • 7h
   • 19,2km
   • +1015m

18 points of interest

• 

  

  Water

  Mont Aigoual

  A beautiful view onto Mont Aigoual (1,567 m) –  a mountain of winds, fog, snow and rain. Banks of clouds coming from the Mediterranean rub against its slopes and can cause violent precipitation (also called Cévenol episodes). This temperamental mountain is home to the last mountain weather-station in France.

• 

  Agriculture

  The Margeride draille (drovers’ road)

  The draille follows the ridge and crosses the Can de l'Hospitalet plateau. This transhumant trail enables the sheep flocks of the plains (of the southern Cévennes and the Crau) to move up to northern Gévaudan (Aubrac, Margeride, Mont Lozère). This draille is only one branch of a larger network along which transhumant livestock still travel. 

• 

  

  Pastoralism

  Summer pastures

  Since time immemorial, animals have naturally migrated from the plains into the mountains in summer. The Salidès pass has summer pastures for sheep. The shepherd’s house is just below you on the Mediterranean side. The shepherd stays several months with about 800 sheep and a few dogs. Careful: patous, the big and handsome white dogs, are there to supervise and defend the herd!
  It is important for the herd to graze here. The animals fertilise the soil and maintain the open spaces.

• 

  Agriculture

  The transhumant shepherd of the Col de Salidès

  From the end of spring onwards, the Col de Salidès livens up. The transhumant shepherd moves up for the three months of summer grazing in this magical spot with almost 1,000 sheep. In all weather, the shepherd takes the animals outside so they can graze new grass. He has to both manage his pasture land and look after the sheep. 
  
  At the end of summer, each livestock farmer comes to recover his animals. Be careful around the dogs that watch over the flock!

• 

  

  Natural environment

  The forest of L’Hom

  From the 19th century, the forest of L’Hom was the “reserve” of a private estate of over 700 hectares. Its animal stocks were protected and used as a “savings account” in the event of unforeseen financial needs. This situation in part explains the diversity of the forest, which stretches from 600 to 1,1000 m in altitude and contains many species: native (holm oak, sweet chestnut, beech, birch, wild cherry, rowan, pine, spruce, etc.) as well as exotic ones, which were introduced by the new owners (northern red oak, red maple, giant redwood, larch hybrids, etc.). This private forest has a management plan based on the prosylva principles (forestry close to nature), which was approved by the body in charge of forest management and the Cévennes National Park. There is abundant game, and you may spot a deer or stag on your walk.

• 

  

  History

  Château du Folhaquier

  The Château du Folhaquier is outlined on this small ridge, which was a strategic site in the Middle Ages, overlooking the Gardon de Saint-Jean river and the Château de La Fare opposite.
  It is separated from the hamlet by a ditch cut into the schist bedrock, and a square tower can still be seen that was built in the 16th century on 12th century ramparts, as well as the vestiges of a round tower at the other end. The foundations of the castle chapel are easy to distinguish, and the Romanesque church of Notre-Dame du Folhaquier, which remains in an excellent state, has withstood the elements for almost a millennium.

• 

  

  Architecture

  The mediaeval castles

  Very close to the village of St-André de Valborgne, on the edge of a cliff, stand the remains of the castrum of La Fare, a defensive castle believed to date from the 12th century. Only a wall face of the tower survives. The ruins above bear witness to the site’s importance. The archives mention a well, cistern and drawbridge – but on site nothing remains. On the next spur is the majestic and dominating castle of Le Folhaquier. Transformations throughout the centuries by various owners have shaped the hamlet as we see it today. The era of silk farming strongly influenced the landscape by welcoming the “tree of gold”, the mulberry tree. 

• 

  

  History

  Château de la Fare

  Following on from many battles against the Château du Folhaquier, today all that is left of the large mediaeval castle of the Lord de la Fare is this expanse of wall. Built at the summit of a schist hill, the castle is surrounded by sheer drops on all sides. The former village was fortified and located just below the expanse of wall. Sources indicate that the castle had a drawbridge and a chapel.

• 

  

  Water

  One spring, five fountains

  This fountain is one of Saint-André’s five public fountains, all of which are supplied by the same spring (its water is thus the same as in the Fontaine du Griffon). Before houses were connected to mains water, there were many more fountains on this side of the quay.

• 

  

  Architecture

  The village of St André de Valborgne

  As you stroll along the quay above the river, you can still see the handsome bourgeois houses dating from the silk boom. If you look around, former spinning mills and industrial buildings dedicated to silk farming can still be seen in the landscape. A little lower down, opposite the 16th century château, you can listen to
  Bernadette Lafont on the Camisard saga in and after 1702. As you reach the square again, quench your thirst at the fountain and have a look inside the Romanesque church (12th century).

• 

  

  History

  The age of silk

  From the 19th century onwards, the silk industry developed in the Cévennes: tanneries gave way to spinning mills. The mills used water not only to treat the silkworm cocoons (which were boiled to prepare the silk) but also for the steam-driven spinning machines. In the second half of the 19th century, diseases strongly reduced silk production, which was also subject to competition from foreign silks and then from artificial silk. The silk industry went under in 1965.

• 

  

  History

  The tanners’ district

  La Calquière district gets its name from that of the ditches in which the tanners soaked their animal skins with limestone, which is called cauç or calç in Occitan. All along the Gardon there were tanneries because its acidic water was good for rinsing the skins, which was indispensable for obtaining high quality products.

• 

  

  History

  Lique Ser

  Lique Ser path goes up to the famous Corniche des Cévennes, a ridge between the two departments of Gard and Lozère. This road, which is busy these days in summer because of its superb views, has not always been a holiday address.
  In the days of Louis XIII and XIV, this was the route of the dragonnades and the repression of Protestantism by the King’s army after the Revocation of the Edict (the billeting of deliberately ill-disciplined soldiers in Protestant households) of Nantes. This ridge gave the soldiers, known as the King’s dragoons, strategic viewpoints. The road was abandoned from the 19th century onwards. In 1930, after lengthy renovations, it was opened to traffic again, becoming a major tourist route

• 

  

  History

  Le Pompidou

  Le Pompidou, like Saint-Roman de Tousque, owes its development to its location on the Corniche des Cévennes road. From the 17th century onwards, this former mule track carried substantial trade, with mule cart drivers bringing up salt, wine and dried fish from southern France to the Gévaudan, taking grains and cloth down from the uplands, and exporting the silk and chestnuts of the Cévennes. You can still see two buildings, the former inn (Le Cheval Blanc) and the Chapeau Rouge staging post, where travellers changed carriage horses.

• 

  Agriculture

  Small buildings

  The small buildings you see dotted here and there are jasses (from jas: place where livestock sleeps), sheepfolds of times gone by. There used to be at least 20 between Tartabissac and Bézuc. From the first warm days to 6 December, livestock would spend the night here, and their owners would come up during the day to watch them. An old saying goes, “No livestock in the chestnut groves before the sixth of December”. 6 December was the date of the fair in Florac when the local chestnuts were sold. Today Bézuc hosts 200 sheep for 8 months of the year.

• 

  

  Geology

  Contact

  At the Col de Tartabisac pass, there is a clear limit between the two bedrocks: on the left, the limestone plateau; on the right, a schist slope. The two rocks are in contact at a geological fault. A layer of very wet sandstone sits at the level of the meadows, at the foot of the limestone. This is where the water that has infiltrated via the thick layers of the Can plateau re-emerges. 

• 

  

  Geology

  Schist, limestone or granite

  From the track, you can make out the hamlets on the side of the valley at the foot of the Can: Roumassel, Le Crouzet, Le Crémat, Le Masbonnet. The land stretching from the valley floor to the plateau belongs to these hamlets, including chestnut groves, pasture and parcels for growing grains. After Bézuc, the bedrock is partly schist, where broom and heather grow, partly limestone, which is linked to the presence of the carline thistle. In a meadow beyond the beech forest, you can see blocks of granite, which stem from a vein linking Mont Aigoual to Mont Lozère. The ruiniform rocks on the plateau were shaped by water, which infiltrates fractures in the rock and dissolves the dolomite that they are made of.

• 

  

  Flora

  Ash trees

  Ash trees, like the ones that border the path, like cool and damp environments. They were planted alongside paths by locals because ash branches, cut towards the end of summer, provided additional fodder for livestock.