In the 1970s, the Causse du Larzac was continually in the headlines over sustained political resistance to the high-profile presence of the French military. Originally there was a small military camp outside the village of LA CAVALERIE on the N9, long tolerated for the cash its soldiers brought in. But in the early 1970s the army decided to expand the place and use it as a permanent strategic base, expropriating a hundred or so farms. The result was explosive. A federation was formed – Paysans du Larzac – which attracted the support of numerous ecological, left-wing and Occitan groups in a protracted campaign of resistance under the slogan "Gardarem lo Larzac" ("Let's protect Larzac"). Successful acts of sabotage were committed, and three huge peace festivals were held here, in 1973, 1974 and 1977. The army's plans were scotched by Mitterrand when he came to power in 1981, but you still find Larzac graffiti from here to Lyon, shorthand for opposition to the army, the state and the Parisian central government, and in favour of self-determination and independence for the south.The best way to immerse yourself in the empty, sometimes eerie atmosphere of Larzac is to walk: GRs 7, 71 and 74 cross the plateau, though you shouldn't attempt them without a Topoguide. If you have no time for anything else, the area between La Couvertoirade, Le Caylar and Ganges in the foothills of the Cévennes will give you a real sense of life on the causse. LA COUVERTOIRADE lies 5km off the main road (parking €3). Billed as a perfect "Templar" village, it's present remains postdate the dissolution of that Order in the late thirteenth century. Anomalies aside, it is a striking site, still completely enclosed by its towers and walls and almost untouched by renovation. Its forty remaining inhabitants live by tourism, and you have to pay to walk around the ramparts (daily: mid-March to June & Sept to mid-Nov 10am–noon & 2–5pm; July & Aug 10am–7pm; €3 including video presentation). Just outside the walls on the south side is a lavogne, a paved water hole of a kind seen all over the causse for watering the flocks, whose milk is used for Roquefort cheese. If you want to stay, there's the municipal gîte d'étape (tel 05.65.58.55.57, [email protected]) in the far corner from the entrance, serving the GR71 and GR71C. A bus from Millau (Mon, Wed & Fri) serves the village during July & August. Half-a-dozen kilometres south, the closest point served by regular public transport, the village of LE CAYLAR clusters in similar fashion at the foot of a rocky outcrop, the top of which has been fashioned into a fortress – worth clambering up for the aerial view of the surrounding causse, where mean little patches of cultivated ground have been stolen from among the merciless upthrusts of rock. If you've got your own transport and a good map, the back road from here, via St-Michel to St-Maurice-Navacelles, is strongly recommended. Wild box grows along the lanes, often meticulously clipped into hedges. Here and there among the scrubby oak and thorn or driving home along the road at milking time, you pass flocks of sheep. Occasional farmhouses materialize, like Les Besses – one of the few still in use – huge, self-contained and fortress-like, with the living quarters upstairs and the sheep stalls down below. ST-MAURICE-NAVACELLES itself, on the GR7 and GR74, is small and sleepy, with a shop in summer only and the Hôtel des Tilleuls (tel 04.67.44.61.60; under €30; closed Nov–Easter; meals from €9) opposite a fine World War I memorial by Paul Dardé. There's no official campsite, but if you ask they'll direct you to a grassy place by the cemetery, where a traditional glacière – a stone-lined pit for storing snow for use as ice before the days of refrigerators – has been restored. Its chief advantage is as a base for visiting the Cirque de Navacelles, 10km north on the D130 past the beautiful ruined seventeenth-century sheep farm of La Prunarède. The cirque is a widening in the 150-metre deep trench of the Vis gorges, formed by a now dry loop in the river that has left a neat pyramid of rock sticking up in the middle like a wheel hub. An ancient and scarcely inhabited hamlet survives in the bottom – a bizarre phenomenon in an extraordinary location, and you get literally a bird's-eye view of it from the edge of the cliff above. Both road and GR7 go through. Continuing to Le Vigan or Ganges via Montdardier, you pass a prehistoric stone circle on the left of the road, a silent and evocative place, especially in a close causse mist. There are other stones and dolmens in the vicinity.
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