Alan Castle - The Robert Louis Stevenson Trail: The GR70 through the Massif Central

About the Author

Alan Castle has trekked in over 30 countries within Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa and Australasia, and for 17 years led organised walking holidays in several European countries. A member of the British Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild, he has written more than a dozen walking guidebooks, several on long-distance mountain routes in France. His longer solo walks include a grand traverse of the European Alps between Nice and Vienna (2430km/1510 miles), the Pilgrims Trail from Le Puy to Santiago de Compostela (1545km/960 miles) and a coast-tocoast route across the French Pyrenees (870km/540 miles). A Munroist, and erstwhile national secretary and long-distance-path information officer of the Long Distance Walkers Association, Alan now lives at the foot of the Moffat Hills in Scotland, in the heart of the Southern Uplands.

In 1988 Alan first walked the trail taken by the Scottish writer, Robert Louis Stevenson, through the Velay and Cvennes of southern France. This was 110 years after Stevensons visit. As a result, he became addicted to the area, visiting many times over the ensuing years to walk many hundreds of kilometres of the regions trails, including the ultra-long GR4, as well as the circular tours of the Velay, Cvennes, Mont Lozre and Mont Aigoual, and long trails in the Causses. By bicycle, he has completed the 666km (410 mile) Grande Traverse du Massif Central right across the region.

Alans continuing fascination with the life and works of RL Stevenson has taken him around the world following in the authors footsteps, including a visit to Western Samoa to pay homage at the grave of the great man, on a hill above Vailima.

Tour of the Queyras (French and Italian Alps)

The John Muir Trail

The Southern Upland Way

The Speyside Way

THE ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON TRAIL

GR70 THROUGH THE MASSIF CENTRAL
A WALKING TOUR IN THE VELAY AND CVENNES, SOUTHERN FRANCE

by Alan Castle

JUNIPER HOUSE, MURLEY MOSS,
OXENHOLME ROAD, KENDAL, CUMBRIA LA9 7RL
www.cicerone.co.uk

Alan Castle 1992, 2007

Second edition 2007 Reprinted 2017 and 2019 (with updates)

ISBN 9781849658096

First edition 1992

ISBN 1852840609

Printed by KHL Printing, Singapore

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Photographs by the author

Dedication

Dedicated to all who would follow in the footsteps of Stevenson and Modestine

For Dad Cain (19322000)

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to Pat Valette of Club Cvenol for encouragement, advice and local information, both in the preparation of the first edition of this guidebook, published in 1992, and during the research and writing of this completely revised second edition.

My wife, Beryl Castle, has always over the years given freely of her advice, support and encouragement during the planning, research and writing of my guidebooks, and this book was no exception. For this I am ever grateful, and also for her help in the preparation of the sketch maps for this book.

I also wish to thank Club Cvenol, Mainstream Publishing (Edinburgh) and Gordon Golding for permission to quote from RL Stevensons The Cvennes Journal .

Finally, I thank Jonathan Williams and his staff at Cicerone Press for their professionalism in publishing this and my other guidebooks.

Updates to this Guide

While every effort is made by our authors to ensure the accuracy of guidebooks as they go to print, changes can occur during the lifetime of an edition. Any updates that we know of for this guide will be on the Cicerone website (www.cicerone.co.uk/511/updates), so please check before planning your trip. We also advise that you check information about such things as transport, accommodation and shops locally. Even rights of way can be altered over time. We are always grateful for information about any discrepancies between a guidebook and the facts on the ground, sent by email to updates@cicerone.co.uk or by post to Cicerone, Juniper House, Murley Moss, Oxenholme Road, Kendal LA9 7RL.

Register your book: To sign up to receive free updates, special offers and GPX files where available, register your book at www.cicerone.co.uk.

Front cover: Old bridge crossing the River Tarn at Le Pont de Montvert (Stage 8)

The Chteau de Beaufort and the River Loire at Goudet (Stage 1)

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

Back in 1988, when I first walked the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail from Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille in the Velay to Saint-Jean-du-Gard in the Cvennes, following in the footsteps of the 19th-century Scottish writer, the situation was very different from that found today. The trail was an unofficial one, and very few people walked the route. I met no other walkers on my journey and I was almost certainly the only person from the UK to walk the trail that year. The locals could not understand why I was walking there, and nobody I talked to had even heard of RL Stevenson!

All that has now changed entirely. In 1994 the trail was adopted by the Fdration Franaise de la Randonne Pdestre, who christened it the GR70, but not before making very considerable changes. The new, much-improved trail has far less road walking than the earlier route, but it still links up all the villages and towns I passed through on my first visit in 1988, and most that Stevenson visited in 1878. During that first year of the official Chemin de Stevenson, it was said that about 200 walkers used it. Nowadays it has become one of Frances most popular long-distance trails, with an estimated 6000 hikers per annum walking its full length.

In 1988 the regions through which I passed were much in need of revitalisation. The villages tended to have declining and elderly populations, with no work for young people, many of whom were forced to move away in search of employment; there were few services for the visitor. The blossoming of the RLS Trail, along with initiatives to promote forms of green tourism, has brought life back into these areas, with plenty of gtes , hotels and restaurants to accommodate the traveller, and local businesses opportunities and employment.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, when accommodation along many sections of the trail was still hard to come by, some very long day-stages were required, with several detours off-route to find a bed for the night, if wild camping was to be avoided. Today, a Stevenson Association exists (see most of the gtes , hotels and campsites along the route are members), with coordinated accommodation and readily available, annually updated leaflets and booklets listing establishments along the trail. There are also several baggage-transfer services on offer for those who do not wish to carry more than a very light daysac, and for those rash enough, hiring a donkey for all or part of the trail could not be simpler. So with plenty accommodation of all types to choose from, the day-stages given in this revised edition are much more even in length, with no excessively long ones. For those wanting to walk either shorter or longer days, there is also much more scope to do so, and still find somewhere to spend the night without detouring off-route.