Cevennes National Park: GR6 and GR7 Trails

Six days walking across the Cevennes national park, the only permanently inhabited national park in France and World Heritage listed for its Mediterranean agro-pastoralism. The route starts at Florac, the park headquarters, crosses the Causse Mejean, an almost desert limestone plateau at a thousand metres where the Aven Armand cave opens with its giant stalagmites, drops into the Tarn gorges at Les Detroits between four-hundred-metre walls, climbs Mont Aigoual and its weather station, the last inhabited one in France, then the Vallee Francaise and its chestnut terraces, and finally Le Vigan. The contrast between arid causse and damp schist valleys is striking. Water is entirely absent on the causse: fill up in the hamlets. The Cevenol storms of September are violent and sudden.