GR70: The Stevenson Trail, 272 km Through the Cévennes

You leave Le Puy-en-Velay under a chapel balanced on a needle of volcanic rock, and twelve walking days later you arrive in a warm southern valley of chestnut forest and stone villages. In between, almost nobody. Long stretches of plateau, forest and moor, and a story running under every stage.

The story is a donkey. In September 1878 Robert Louis Stevenson set out from Le Monastier with a donkey called Modestine, and the book he wrote, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, turned his route into the GR70, the Chemin de Stevenson.

It is not the most spectacular trail in France, and it does not try to be. What it offers is rarer: whole days with nobody on them, rolling ground that rewards steady effort, and a village bed every night.

Our guide to hiking in France covers the country's other big routes, and our sister brand covers cycling in France if you would rather ride.

Quick facts:

• Where: Le Puy-en-Velay to Saint-Jean-du-Gard or Alès, across the Haute-Loire, Ardèche, Lozère and Gard in south central France

• What: a waymarked 272 km trail (Le Puy to Alès), walked village to village in about twelve stages

• How difficult: a stamina route; long days and about 6,700 m of climbing, but no scrambling and no drops

• When: May to October, best in May, June and September

The trail crosses four quite different landscapes, and each one changes how the walking feels.

Most people start in Le Puy, which adds a day and a half before the official start at Le Monastier, because the town is worth it and the trains are better there. It also gives you a gentle first day instead of a cold start onto the plateau.

Part 1: Le Puy to Langogne

Volcanic highland: open moor, old lava flows and medieval villages standing up out of the plateau. The wind has nothing to stop it up here, which is the first thing walkers notice and the last thing they expect from central France. The shade and chestnuts the Cévennes are known for are still a week away.

Part 2: Langogne to La Bastide

The trail follows the upper Allier through pine forest and peat bog, with the Margeride hills to the east. The emptiest part of the walk. You can go for hours without meeting anyone, which is either the whole point of the GR70 or a long way from the nearest coffee, depending on the kind of walker you are.

Part 3: The Mont Lozère Crossing

The stretch that defines the route. From Le Bleymard you climb through open moor dotted with granite standing stones to the Finiels summit at 1,699 metres, the highest point of the trail. Then the trail drops more than 800 metres into Pont-de-Montvert, where three valleys meet, one of the best arrivals on any French path.

Part 4: The Cévennes National Park

Chestnut forest replaces moorland, the villages turn Mediterranean, and the paths narrow into old mule tracks between dry stone walls. The air changes too. By Saint-Jean-du-Gard you are breathing something warmer and more fragrant than anything on the plateau you left a week before, and the trail has moved you south without announcing it.

The Twelve Stages

These are the stages we walk on our GR70 tour. Independent walkers move the splits around, but the shape is the same: the climbing sits in the second half, not spread evenly.

That comes to about 235 kilometres and 6,700 metres of climbing. Published totals for the GR70 run from about 220 to 276 kilometres depending on where you start and stop, so compare endpoints rather than headline numbers.

Two stops deserve more than a bed. Langogne is the biggest town of the first half, with shops and a cash machine, and the place to stock up before the empty middle. Florac sits at the gate of the national park, with the park's visitor centre, and is the natural place for a rest day.

Our own tour walks these twelve stages, with every bed booked and your bag moved each morning.

Stevenson's donkey, and the reason the trail exists. He was 27 and recently heartbroken when he bought her at Le Monastier, loaded her with twelve days of supplies and walked south into the Cévennes with no plan beyond walking and writing. He sold her at the finish in Saint-Jean-du-Gard.

On the way he spent a night with the Trappist monks of Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, near La Bastide-Puylaurent. You walk past the abbey on stage 5, and it still sells honey and abbey produce, though nothing you could call a packed lunch.

The book he wrote about the trip helped invent the travel memoir. His route is now part of the "In the Footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson" network, which the Council of Europe certified as a Cultural Route in 2015.

You can still walk it with a donkey. Several outfits in Le Monastier hire them out with panniers, and it remains a popular way to do the trail with children. The donkey carries the bags and sets a pace slower than yours.

Read the book before you go rather than after; it makes the villages read differently.

Harder than it looks, but never technical. There is no scrambling, no fixed rope and nothing exposed to a drop.

The difficulty is all accumulation: twelve days in a row of 12 to 28.5 kilometres, with about 6,700 metres of climbing in total. Our tour grades it fitness 5 of 5 against technical 3 of 5, and that gap is the whole story of this trail.

Underfoot it is kind: wide tracks, old mule paths and forest trails, with none of the boulder work that makes the GR20 a different sport. Anyone who has walked a longer Camino variant or a similar inn to inn route will find this a step up, not a different sport. Grades follow our hiking difficulty guide.

The Two Hard Days

The two stages that demand respect arrive back to back.

Downhill technique is what saves knees here. The Lozère drop and the long descent towards the Gard each give away close to a thousand metres, and that is where undertrained walkers come unstuck. Train on regular 20 kilometre days over varied ground, with some back to back, so the second morning is no surprise.

For a remote trail the GR70 is surprisingly sociable. You sleep in villages, not huts, so every evening ends in a village, usually with other walkers. Then the next morning, nobody.

On the plateau the wind has nothing to break it, and you can see weather coming for an hour before it arrives. In the Margeride the forest closes in and the silence is total. That middle section is where people either settle into the route or start counting days.

The rhythm is steady rather than dramatic. You climb, you walk a long plateau, you drop into a valley village for the night.

The landscapes change slowly enough that you only notice looking back: broom and gorse on the plateau, pine and bog in the middle, then chestnut, olive and dry stone terraces at the end.

And you eat well. The first days cross the country of the green Puy lentil, the first vegetable in France to win a protected designation.

The south runs through Pélardon goat cheese, Cévennes chestnuts and Cévennes honey, each protected in its own right. The chestnut was once the bread tree here, dried in stone huts whose ruins still stand in the woods.

Protestant rebels at war with the French crown, fighting a guerrilla campaign from 1702 to 1710, here in the Cévennes. The war started at Le Pont-de-Montvert, a village you walk into on stage 8.

You do not need to know any of this to enjoy the walk. But it makes the emptiness of these hills read differently once you know it.

May, June and September are the best months, in a season that runs May to October.

In summer, change the shape of the day. Start early, climb before eleven and be at your bed by early afternoon. The valley stages bake, and the shade only arrives once you reach the chestnuts.

Fly into Lyon, leave from Nîmes or Montpellier. Lyon to Le Puy is two and a half to three hours by train, changing at Saint-Étienne. From Paris, a TGV from Gare de Lyon to Saint-Étienne Châteaucreux connects with the regional train, four and a half to six hours in all.

Arrive in Le Puy the day before you start. The old town sits between two volcanic pinnacles, one topped by a chapel and the other by a statue, and it is one of the strangest town centres in France.

At the finish, Saint-Jean-du-Gard has a bus to Nîmes in about an hour and a half, with trains on to Paris, Lyon, Montpellier and Marseille, and Montpellier is about two and a half hours by bus and train. The connections work but are not reliably punctual, so leave half a day before any flight.

If you have a spare afternoon, the old steam railway still runs down the Gardon valley from Saint-Jean.

Beds come in four kinds, and knowing which you have booked matters more here than on a hut route:

Book ahead from May to September. The best places at Le Monastier, La Bastide-Puylaurent, Pont-de-Montvert and Saint-Jean-du-Gard fill early, and for July or August the best reviewed can be gone by March.

Book dinner with every bed, carry water and cash, and download your maps. Those three habits prevent most problems on this trail.

Food and Water

Half board is the normal arrangement, and more than a convenience: some hosts only feed their own guests: a table d'hôte may serve dinner only to walkers sleeping there, so arriving in a village with no restaurant and no booked meal can leave you with nothing.

Ask for the next day's picnic lunch (panier repas) and, before Mont Lozère, an early breakfast.

The gap to plan around is Langogne to La Bastide-Puylaurent: about 43 kilometres and two walking days with no grocery. Buy at Langogne, for two days. Village shops commonly close from half past twelve until four, and weekly markets are worth catching: Le Puy on Saturday, Florac on Thursday, Saint-Jean-du-Gard on Tuesday.

There is no official network of water points. The trail association advises carrying a litre and a half at all times, and Lozère has drought restrictions most summers, so fill up before you leave each morning.

What to Carry

With luggage moved for you, it is a day pack, and the big decisions are footwear and water:

• Footwear: supportive trail shoes are enough; the route is track, mule path and moor, not rock

• Trekking poles: the descents take more out of you than the climbs

• Water: at least a litre and a half, refilled every morning

• Rain shell: spring storms build fast on Mont Lozère, even in June

• Sun hat and cream: the lower Cévennes are hot and the shade comes late

• Cash: there is no cash machine between Langogne and Le Bleymard, and small gîtes may not take cards

Maps, Signal and Permits

The trail carries red and white GR waymarks throughout, maintained by the Fédération Française de la Randonnée Pédestre, which publishes the official topo guide. The exception is Mont Lozère in cloud, where there is little to follow, so carry a downloaded GPX track. Parts of the route have no mobile signal at all.

No permit is needed anywhere. Inside the national park, camping and fires are restricted, so check the park's own site if you plan to sleep out.

Our GR70 Stevenson Trail tour walks all twelve stages from Le Puy to Saint-Jean-du-Gard, with every bed booked in advance and your luggage moved each morning. If you would like help with dates or the journey at either end, get in touch with our team.