We spent a week traveling from the south of France and the Cote d’Azur in the l’Aquittane region up to mid-west of France to the Correze region in June for a friend’s wedding and enjoyed some very picturesque driving routes and towns along the way. We took the road from Fejus north, following the Rhone river until just below the town of Orange where we turned west, stopping in at the town of Ales for lunch then followed the Gardon d’Ales (a tributary of the Ales river) and through the forested Parc National des Cévennes , winding through the mountains and past many agricultural fields and pretty little towns and of course chateaus on hill tops. I’ve described our journey and highlights of each town below.
The charming town of Ales
Our first stop was Ales, where we enjoyed a walk along the river which they were just starting to set up for summer, putting down sand, and constructing bars.
Ales is a low-key student town and many groups of students were gathered in Le Jardin du Bosquet which has shady trees and an old chateau with pretty garden beds and a beautiful fountain. We did a whole tour of the town looking (as always) for the elusive public W.C. So many are closed or hidden in the smaller towns and it’s become a bit of a competition and pseudo sightseeing tour for us to find the open, usable, loo. We tend to find a few quaint streets, parks and roman ruins along the way and Ales was no exception
Magnificent Mende
We spent a night and two days in the lovely little town of Mende (pronounced Mond) sits in the upper Lot Valley at the northern edge of the Parc National de Cevennes, in the Lozère department of Languedoc-Roussillon.
What a surprise package this place was! We had a little attic apartment opposite the enormous gothic Mende cathedral – the entry point to the medieval town which spiralled out behind the church. There was a concert on in the gardens of the church the night we were there, and we left all our windows opened to listen as we ate our dinner – lots of wood wind and string instruments – quite lovely. Mende is a crafts and commerce town with lots of old trades -antique restoration, painters, and murals everywhere.
They have lovely, coloured umbrellas hung in all the side streets which glow in the sunlight and guide you to where the shops are located. We wandered around the town and found two delicious butchers/épiceries to buy ingredients for our dinner and cooked up in our attic kitchen to the sounds of the concert floating up from the square below.
We also enjoyed one of the many walks the area is famous for. We chose the hike up to the Hermitage de Saint-Privat (it is the first stop on the 6km loop walk that goes a little further up to the cross of Mont Mimat and the highest points of the Causse de Mende: Mont-Mimat (1070 m). We ran out of time to get to the cross but enjoyed looking around the hermitage which consists of a church, a cave and a more recently added (in 1960), 50-room residence and shelter built by Father Durand.
The walk leaves from opposite the Tourist office and goes pretty much straight up for an hour on rocky, gravelly path lined with pine trees that drop their pinecones rhythmically as you walk (and are a little like walking on ball-bearings going down). There are the usual series of porticos featuring paintings of the Stations of the Cross every 400m or so as you wind your way up to the Hermitage – as it is recognised as a pilgrims walk to worship a saint/martyr. The martyr in residence here is Privat, who was the ruler of this land in the 3rd Century, legend has it that the area was invaded and Privat was asked to hand over his people – he refused and was martyred in the cave on the north slope of Mont-Mimat. It was a rather gruesome death (as was the style in the early centuries) with Privat being locked in a barrel lined with nails pointing inwards and thrown from the top of Mont-Mimat. The cave where his tomb rests became an important place of pilgrimage and over the centuries many hermits and priests lived here. In 1850 the chapel was built then in 1873 the last hermit, Fra Giuseppe Laget, transformed and developed the site. He built a residence and in 1881 he redid the Stations of the Cross – which are the altars with pictures of Christ carrying his cross that are dotted along all the (uphill) walks we have done to Abbeys (Rocamador, Montellegro- Rappallo and Mende). In 1960, Father Durand opened a shelter and built a 50-room residence – which looked like it hadn’t been used in a while when we were there in June 2024.
Conquering Conques
After Mende, we wound our way up through the lush green valleys and around more high twisty mountain roads up to Conques. Goodness what a delight. We did the limbo around hairpin after hairpin in our rather long car and parked in the public carpark (no cars allowed in Conques and rightly so, as it is a very tiny hilltop town with narrow alleyways).
We donned our backpacks with all our supplies for the night and hiked up into the village via the bibliothèque and managed to find our very tiny but delightful little apartment for the night. We put on raincoats and ventured out into a stormy evening to explore the town which is a zig zag of little alleyways up and down the terraced mountain streets. Conques is on the Santiago de Compostela route and has two UNESCO sites: Sainte-Foy Abbey and the Pilgrim’s Bridge over the Dourdou. The abbey is quite stunning and stands as the centrepiece of this small topsy turvey town. It was built in the 11th century on the foundations of a former hermitage and is classified as an Abbey as it houses famous for the relics of Sainte-Foy, a young Christian martyr from Agen (you have to house a martyr/saint to be ordained an Abbey). The drawcard these days however are the plain but very different, 104 stained glass windows designed in 1990 by the painter Pierre Soulages (104 in total). We were expecting spectacular colour but instead got a 1960’s B&W TV version – but could appreciate that they were designed in a way to let in maximum light and lent an airy, bright feel to the austere abbey.
In the Abbey’s cloister’s south wing is the Treasure of Conques which the only collection in France to include so many reliquary treasures from the Early Middle Ages. – the piece deo resistance being the statue of her Majesty Sainte-Foy.
We enjoyed a glass of prosecco in the square while the pilgrims went to mass then the heavens opened up and we made a dash back to our apartment – and got drenched on the way! We also enjoyed just walking around the old town and explored one of the many walks in the area – a portion of one of the GR’s (Grande Routes) that left from behind the Abbey and wound down to the river. We planned to walk down to the river and keep exploring but the path was so overgrown by prickly plants, thistles and blackberries that we had to turn back once we reached the river. Conques is a super cool town for those looking for a bit of character and history off the beaten path.
Fabulous Figeac
Our last town before our wedding weekend in Uzerche was at Figeac for a quick lunch stop & explore. We’re glad we took this small detour as this is a fabulous little town packed with some great sights.
This medieval town is known for its Art and History, and has many narrow streets lined with beautiful old mansions with carved facades and timber-framed stone residences. In the heart of the old town we stumbled across a large swathe of black granite stone engraved with writing and discovered it was called the Ecritures (Writings) which is a contemporary artwork of Joseph Kosuth representing an immense reproduction of the Rosetta Stone (See centre picture above). The he Notre-Dame-du-Puy church perched above the town provides a great view back over the rooftops of the vilage (see first picture above) and the main square has lots of lovely places to stop for lunch.
Discovering Uzerche
The Uzerche tourism website says : Uzerche, located to the west of Corrèze, is one of the “100 Most Beautiful Detours in France”. It is certainly picturesque and brimming with architectural and cultural delights, but it is a small rural town split across two levels with the business end spread out along the river and the old town perched along the spine of the cliffs rising up from the Vézère river valley. It was fortified early, in the 8th Century, and became a favourite of the nobility in the 15th century with many of the noble houses now repurposed as hotels and homes. The old town boasts emblematic Porte Bécharie ,the Saint Pierre Abbey, and a beautiful belvedere outside the Hôtel Joyet de Maubec.
We visited for a friends wedding and the wedding party stayed at the Hôtel Joyet de Maubec which was magnificent. We enjoyed lunch on the terrace and it has the most beautiful view and food – highly recommended. We stayed in the ‘working’ part of the town down along the river at Hotel Tessayier – a friendly budget hotel with good access to some lovely walks along the river and the old paper making mill. Closed after a rich and prosperous time, the Papeterie eco-district has now been turned into a cultural hub featuring the Graffeterie, entirely dedicated to street art which also has a skate park, a glass blowers workshop, an organic brewery and the site is also used for rave parties (one was on the night we were there until 4am!). The river that was used to make the paper now also boasts a hydro-electric power turbine which generate electricity to run the town.
This town packs a punch culturally and also boasts the Sophie-Dessus auditorium which holds free open air concerts, the Simone-de-Beauvoir media library which is a multi media library with works form the famous author and many others plus you can read her works along a walk on the banks of the Vézère, where you can walk “In the footsteps of Simone de Beauvoir” and read her works on 10 panels offering the author’s texts for reflection.
There are very little services up in the old town, or down below for that matter. You’ll find a café, bar, restaurant in the square and a few high end hotels. Down along the river there’s just a small Tabac, organic fruit store, about 1km along a small supermarket and along the river on the weekends are
Food vans (fromagerie van, poulet roti van, épicerie van, and strangely enough, samosas stand – which we indulged in!). They were setting up big marquees and chairs and tables along the river the weekend we were there which was a post rave feeding venue on the Sunday. What we call simply, food trucks in Australia the French call Guingettes and these were feeding the hungover masses on Sunday.
