Summit of the Puy Mary - Cantal
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Admistrative Departments - The four
counties
The Auvergne consists of
four departments or counties :
the Allier, the Puy de Dôme,
the Haute Loire
and the Cantal
The Allier
in
the north - mostly an area of plains and valleys, with small
hills and good agriculture, covers more or less the historic
province of Bourbonnais, the original fief of the Bourbons, one of the
largest royal families of Europe. The Allier is best known
cities are Moulins, Montluçon
and Vichy. Moulins , lying on
the river Allier, is very much
a city of
central France, in the style of the towns of the Loire valley.
Montluçon and the nearby town of Commentry expanded in the
nineteenth century on the back of a coal-mining industry. Vichy, also
on the river Allier, is
a famous spa town with something of an old-fashioned atmosphere. It was
the capital of "free" France during the second world war, while the
north was under Nazi occupation - a role that it prefers to forget
today. It prefers to brand itself as a relaxed place where
people still come to take the waters or go to the races.... rather like
a small French version of Cheltenham. The eastern edge of the
department is a hillier area, with a small area in the extreme south
east of the department reaching over 1000 metres in the Monts de la
Madeleine, bordering on the Puy de Dôme.
The "Puy
de Dome" in
the middle - largely mountainous, but with a large fertile
agricultural plain, the Limagne, in the middle, to the east of Clermont
Ferrand. With its tall old houses built of black volcanic stone,
Clermont, the home of the Michelin tyre company, is a rather
austere city; it lies at the juncture
between the fertile agricultural plain called the Limagne, and the
Massif Central mountains behind and is dominated by the 1500 metre Puy
de Dôme, a massive dormant volcano. This is the
most famous
peak in the "chaine des Volcans", the largest dormant
volcanic region in western Europe. South of Clermont lies the Massif du
Sancy, a small alpine-looking cluster of mountains slightly higer than
the Puy de Dome itself, and culminating in the Puy de Sancy, at 1885
metres, the highest point in the central part of France.
The
western part of the Puy de Dome department is an upland area, well
watered by the rain brought in on Atlantic airstreams. It is an area
that traditionally remains green and mild in the summer. The waters
that have fallen on these hills and mountains over the centuries
emerge, well mineralised, at famous springs in towns such as Le Mont
Dore, Volvic, or Saint Nectaire.. In the south of the department,
bordering on the Cantal, lies an area known as the Cezallier, an area
of high prairies not unlike parts of the American west, and a land
grazed by large herds of cattle.
The "Chaine des Puys" - looking north towards the Allier. Photo Romary - Licence CC
The Haute
Loire in
the south east, the driest and sunniest part of the Auvergne, a lot of
it at an altitude of over 800 metres. Virtually the whole department is
hilly or mountainous, and a lot is forested. The northern area is
centered round the market town of Brioude, with its magnificent
romanesque basilica, the largest in the region. South of Brioude lies
the "Haut Allier", a region with deep valleys, a
generally warm
and sunny climate and a definite flavour of the south of France.
The
southern part of the department is known as
"le Velay"; its capital, Le Puy en Velay, was a major pilgrimage centre
in the middle ages, a starting point on the route to Santiago de
Compostella, and to this day the city's cathedral and St Michael's
chapel remain remarkable examples of early mediaeval architecture.
Robert Louis Stevenson set off from Le Monastier, just south of Le Puy,
in his famous travelogue "Travels with a donkey". In the
south,
the Haute Loire borders on the department of the Ardèche,
and
the top of the Cevennes mountains.
The Cantal,
in
the south west, is the highest of the four departments, a lot of it
over
1000m altitude. The department boasts two main centres, the bustling
market town of Aurillac, the department's capital, to the west of the
high mountains, and Saint Flour, an ancient town perched dramatically
at the top of a volcanic outcrop in the east of the department, and
visible from the motorway. The centre of the Cantal is dominated by the
Plomb du Cantal and the peaks around it, a massive volcanic cluster
marking the heart of the Massif Central mountains. The Plomb du Cantal
is very accessible, as it rises above the ski resort of Super Lioran,
which is just beside the main trunk road between Clermont Ferrand and
Aurillac. The department is
famous for its cheeses, notably the eponymous "Cantal" cheese, and the
delicious Auvergne Blue - bleu d'Auvergne - much of which is
produced in the Cantal highlands. Another Cantal monument is a famous
viaduct, the Viaduc de Garabit, designed by Gustave Eiffel. The viaduct
spans the gorge of the Truyère river, and can be admired
from a special visitor centre on the A75 motorway.
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