Walks in Languedoc - Rail/hike Lozere is your chance to discover France’s last remaining and fully-functioning mountain railway. In essence, it’s a gift from heaven for eco-hikers and a vital artery for the chosen few who are fortunate enough to reside in this upland paradise. Let the train take the strain and get you into position in low-carbon fashion, whilst you enjoy some marvelous views from your comfortable carriage on ‘the line of one hundred tunnels.’ Once in place, you’ll get immense pleasure from some of Lozere’s finest walks.
Walks in Languedoc - Rail/hike Lozere takes you from the Gardon Valley up and into France's most remote region, where chain hotels staffed by expats remain the stuff of dreams. En route you pass over and through some of rail heritage’s most magnificent architectural achievements.
As for the eco-walking itself, we have carefully assembled arguably three of the finest walks you are likely to find anywhere in Lozere, if not in the whole of central-southern France. The picture-postcard location of your hotel will have you drooling at the mouth and you get to stay there for four nights on this single-centre tour!
Tour Summary
Arrival day in Villefort.You are collected from La Gare and transferred to your hotel on the banks of Lake Villefort.
(2* hotel for four nights)
Day 1: Lake Villefort and Mont Lozere.
Walk options from 6 kms-4 miles to 14 kms-9 miles. Enjoy a hike round the lake with optional extensions to Castanet castle or via the Mont Lozere trail.
Day 2: The Chassezac Gorge. Transfer to the medieval village of Garde-Guerin. Walk options from 3 miles-5kms [Light] to 7 miles-10.5 kms Gorge walk, +/-400 metres [M to MC].
Day 3: The Regordane Way. Walk options from 8.5 miles-13kms to 10.5 miles-16kms. After-breakfast transfer to train station [or nearby village] and short train ride to La Bastide. The return walk along the Regordane is one of Lozere's finest. Departure day.
Transfer back to train station and train ride back to Nimes via Ales or north to Claremont-Ferrand and change for Paris.
Tour Description
The mystery of the Lake
You follow a fine lakeside trail, wonder at the creativity of man, but mourn the loss of the village beneath its waters. Castanet castle is a little gem and the climb to the easternmost flank of Mont Lozere affords some fine views over the surrounding countryside. Villefort then gives up its secrets as an important watering hole along the medieval Regordane.
Revolutionary Knights of The Chassezac
Your ethereal walk takes you back to the twelfth century and a village that’s almost unchanged since that era. The descent into the Gorge, and the crossing of the rope bridge, is as invigorating as the climb out is challenging. You wonder at the blissful isolation of the hamlet perched over the abyss, before sweeping onwards, round the banks of the Chassezac river and back to the middle ages. The shorter option comprises the village tour and return to hotel via a stretch of The Regordane.
Gargantua's dolmen and the trail of the mule drivers
You enjoy a short train ride north along one of the most remarkable sections of The Cevenol’s, before heading south, crossing the watershed between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic at 1133 ms, and embarking on a memorable descent back to Chassezac river that will live long in the mind’s eye.
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