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Tourism in the Past around La Bastide-Puylaurent
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At the beginning of the 16th century, La Bastide was a hamlet of seven or eight houses located on the right bank of the Allier. In the Gevaudan area was the farm inhabited for several centuries by the Bastide family (which, according to some, gave its name to the village), also known as "Trouillas." To the south of La Bastide stood a chapel named Saint-Thomas de la Souche: today, its site is marked only by a rustic cross, facing the current cemetery. The chapel was built to facilitate religious practice for travelers who took the Regordane Way.
Near La Bastide, in the Allier valley, stood the Huttes farm; and in the valley of the Trappe stream, a few small farms or private houses. A farm-inn called Grande-Halte served as a stage stop, a resting place for pilgrims, merchants, and herders who followed the Regordane Way.
The arrival of the railway in 1870, followed by the creation of the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges monastery a few years later, as well as the emergence of the Saint-Laurent-les-Bains spa resort, greatly contributed to the village’s development, which evolved from a mere stopping place into a small mountain tourist resort. The village was built from scratch over time, and its atypical history explains its current location: straddling Occitanie and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Lozere and Ardeche.
La Bastide 1,018 m; SNCF railway line, buses to Saint-Laurent-les-Bains (Ardeche); Hôtel des Pins, 30 rooms; Hôtel du Parc (now Maison d'hôtes L'Etoile), 22 rooms; Terminus, at the station, 20 rooms. The commune of La Bastide-Puylaurent (1,289 inhabitants), a summer resort frequented by families from the south of France, is situated on the nascent Allier, in a meadowy valley, near the rounded and treeless summits along the Cevennes watershed line, heavily snowed in winter (now popular ski slopes). Because of its altitude and its location on the watershed divide, La Bastide always enjoys a great freshness in summer.
Excursions around La Bastide-Puylaurent:
1° Sources of the Allier (to the west; 4h30 on foot). — Take the train on the Mende line to the Chasserades station. From there, a path to the northwest leads in about 1h15 to the sources of the Allier, at the foot of the wooded slopes of Mourre de la Gardille (1,501 m.), which can be climbed without difficulty in 45 min.: beautiful view of Mont Lozere and the Causses. From there, return directly to La Bastide by following eastward a crest at 1,300 m altitude.
2° Palet du Thort (dolmen), 4 km to the south, via the ridges.
3° Trappe de Notre-Dame-des-Neiges (3.5 km east by road). A path branches off 2.5 km along the road to Saint-Laurent-les-Bains, on the left, and goes down through a beautiful forest of pines, spruces, and beeches, to the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Trappist monastery (1,110 m.), founded in 1850 on the grounds of the former Chambons Abbey, in a secluded valley whose stream flows into the Allier at La Bastide-Puylaurent. Burned down in 1912, the monastery was rebuilt.
From the Trappe, one can reach Saint-Laurent-les-Bains on foot (3 km) by going up a valley to the northeast; you pass near the Felgere farm; you reach the Col du Pal and then descend eastward, passing to the left of the old tower overlooking Saint-Laurent-les-Bains.
From La Bastide to Mende (by rail, 48 km; by road, 49 km WSW, crossing the Montbel plateau). You cross the Allier and follow to the left the C.6 road, which leads up the upper valley of this river for about 7 km; then it crosses, along with the railway line, at an altitude of 1,175 m, a threshold passing from the upper valley of the Allier into that of the Chassezac.
Chasserades (1,150 m.), from where you can reach the source of the Allier in 1h15; Romanesque church with a defensive tower.
The road, continuing up the upper valley of the Chassezac as far as Belvezet, passes under the fine Mirandol viaduct. — At 12.5 km on the left, a small road branches off, climbing through forests towards the Goulet mountain (1,499 m.; 6.5 km to the end of the road and then 30 min on foot). At 16.5 km, you leave Saint-Frezal-d'Albuges to the right, which has a Romanesque church.
17.5 km. Belvezet (1,197 m.), a village situated amid cultivated undulations, near the sources of the Chassezac; ascent of Mourre de la Gardille (1,501 m.) in 1h33. The road rises onto the plateau. 22.5 km. Montbel (1,224 m.), population 399, on the plateau of the same name.
The Montbel plateau represents a spur of Jurassic strata pushed into the ancient rocks of the Gevaudan. It is a plateau in its early stage, where the waters have not yet carved out their underground galleries and deep gorges: there are, however, a few sinkholes. The Montbel plateau, known as the “roof of France,” plays a very important hydrographic role: its waters flow to the southeast into the Chassezac and the Rhône, to the north into the Allier and the Loire, and to the west into the Lot, the Truyere, and the Garonne. This triple watershed boundary is extended to the northeast and southeast by the Cevennes, and to the northwest by the Plateau du Roi and the Margeride mountains. This plateau has a very harsh climate and can only support pastoral activities: 50,000 sheep, transhumant from Languedoc along its “drailles,” come to graze the fine, short, dry grass of its plateaus.
To the west of Montbel, the C.6 road joins (at 27 km) the N.88 road. 28 km: Col de la Pierre Plantee (1,264 m.): from there to Mende, 22 km along the N.88 road.
From La Bastide-Puylaurent to Les Vans (44 km southeast by road, picturesque and rugged; automobile service to Saint-Laurent). You leave La Bastide by the N.106 road, heading southeast, and after 0.5 km you take the D.4 road to the left, which climbs eastward along the desolate Cevennes ridge, overlooking the deep ravines of the Borne to the south: magnificent views of the chestnut-wooded ridges and, in the distance, Mount Lozere.
2.5 km. A statue of the Virgin marks the entrance of the path to the Trappe de Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, to the left. The road continues to climb until a 1,150 m pass, from where it descends with broad curves for 5 km into the deep Borne valley.
8 km Saint-Laurent-les-Bains (840 m.; buses to La Bastide-Saint-Laurent station, Grand Hôtel des Thermes, June-Oct., 100 rooms), population 403, a spa resort in the gorge of a small tributary of the Borne, at the bottom of a true chasm 500 m deep, opening under the Cevennes ridge. The ruins of an old square tower crown a steep rock 110 m above the valley. The thermal waters (53.5°C), sodium bicarbonate, are used against general rheumatism: the Grande Source feeds a public fountain and the spa establishment, where a Roman pool still remains.
From Saint-Laurent-les-Bains, one can climb the Trepaloup (to the north; ascent 2 h, descent 1h15): you reach the Cevennes ridge by a mule track to the west, then follow the ridge to the northeast. From the summit of Trepaloup (1,408 m.), there is a very beautiful panorama: Mont Lozere, the Mezenc, and in clear weather Mount Ventoux. One can make a fine circuit by returning via Borne and a very picturesque path following the edge of the upper Borne gorges (4h30 in total).
A very scenic road, 17 km east, which makes a wide detour south following the edge of the Liche-Chaude torrent gorges, connects Saint-Laurent to Loubaresse, on the road from Le Puy-en-Velay to Largentiere.
From Saint-Laurent-les-Bains, the D.4 road continues downward to cross the Liche-Chaude torrent gorge, then climbs very steeply through fir forests. It then descends at length, with a gentler slope, on the Chassezac side, through an almost deserted area.
29 km Peyre, a fork where you leave the D.4 road to take the D.10 road to the right, descending into the Chassezac valley.
42.5 km. You leave Chambonas on the left, in a meander of the Chassezac dominated by a restored feudal castle with a park attributed to Le Nôtre; the Romanesque church contains a sculpted frieze. You cross the Chassezac.
Beyond La Bastide, the N.106 road, by a winding ascent, climbs a ridge overlooking to the right the Allier valley, which sinks westward. A superb route. The road reaches 1,109 m in altitude on the Cevennes crest: here you pass from the Loire basin to that of the Rhône. Then it descends into the Chassezac valley, a tributary of the Ardeche, reached at Prevencheres (850 m.): church from the 12th and 15th centuries, preceded by a magnificent lime tree; ruined castle. The road follows the meanders of the Chassezac, then runs along a ledge above the gorge into which the torrent plunges.
85 km La Garde-Guerin (875 m.), a very picturesque hamlet on the northern edge and on the brink of the plateau that falls almost sheer on the right bank of the Chassezac: splendid view.
In former times, this was the seat of a curious community of twenty-seven noble “pariers,” founded by the bishops of Mende and charged with escorting and protecting, in return for a toll, travelers along the GR®700 Voie Regordane, an ancient Gallic and Roman road which, starting from Nîmes, crossed the Villefort pass, passed the old hamlet of Bayard, climbed a steep slope, and traversed the plateau known as Serre des Mulets; it served as a transhumance route towards Lozere and Aubrac and remained throughout the Middle Ages the only communication route between Languedoc and Auvergne.
La Garde-Guerin preserves the remains of the wall that surrounded its twenty-seven fortified houses and a large square tower of the former 10th-11th century castle, 21 m high; a small restored Romanesque church. The road, extremely picturesque, now descends in a diagonal line along the curious Garde-Guerin plateau and overlooking the picturesque gorges of the Altier, then makes a wide curve northward to pick up, at the bottom of a ravine, a southward direction. At the bottom of this descent, you emerge on the left bank of the Altier and leave on the right the N.101 road which passes under the beautiful two-tier Bayard viaduct, 72 m high, carrying the Nîmes line. Turning left, you cross the Altier via the Louis-Philippe bridge and pass through the 200 m long Bayard tunnel into the Palheres valley.
Former resort hotel with a garden on the banks of the Allier, L'Étoile Guesthouse is located in La Bastide-Puylaurent, nestled between Lozère, Ardèche, and the Cevennes in the mountains of Southern France. Positioned at the crossroads of GR®7, GR®70 Chemin Stevenson, GR®72, GR®700 Voie Regordane (Saint Gilles), GR®470 Sources and Gorges of the Allier, GRP® Cevenol, Montagne Ardechoise, and Margeride. It offers numerous loop routes for hiking and day-long cycling excursions. Ideal for a relaxing stay.
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