Lozère is France’s least populated department, a region of high mountains and windswept plateaus — the Margeride, Mont Aigoual and Mont Lozère — which has given rise to a particularly austere and resilient rural architecture built of granite and basalt. Castles are rare here and often in ruins, yet they command attention through their setting amidst landscapes of an almost hostile grandeur.
The Beast of Gévaudan, which terrorised the region between 1764 and 1767, has left a mark on the collective imagination as enduring as the medieval fortresses that overlook the department’s towns. Marvejols, Florac, La Garde-Guérin — a medieval fortified village preserved intact on the Pourcharesses plateau — and the Château de la Baume in Mende bear witness to a history marked by isolation and the harshness of the natural environment.
The Tarn and Jonte gorges, ranked among the most beautiful in France, carve the Causses into vertiginous landscapes where troglodyte dwellings and hamlets of grey stone seem to spring directly from the limestone. This rugged landscape, crossed by the Stevenson Trail, is an invitation to discover a wild and unspoilt Occitanie.