Cantal is home to Europe’s largest volcano, an extinct massif whose peaks — the Plomb du Cantal, the Puy Mary and the Griou — tower over vast grassy plateaus covered in snow in winter and flowers in summer. This mountain in the heart of France has shaped a rugged and austere architecture of basalt and trachyte, reflecting the harsh climate and the resilience of its inhabitants.
Aurillac, the department’s capital, is the centre of umbrella and lace-making, traditional crafts that bear witness to the ingenuity of the people of the Cantal in the face of winter isolation. The Château d’Anjony, a 15th-century medieval fortress still inhabited by the descendants of its builders, with its interior frescoes depicting valiant knights and the Nine Valiant Knights, is one of the best-preserved castles in the Massif Central. Pesteils, Conros, Leotoing, whose castle overlooks the Rhue Gorge, Murat with its basalt rocks crowned by a monumental statue of the Virgin…
The Truyère and its gorges, the Aubrac plateau and the Jordanne valley offer landscapes of wild grandeur in which the basalt castles stand with natural authority.