Lozère - Lozère

Lozère is a department in the French former region Languedoc-Roussillon, since 2016 Occitania. A large part of the department with the serial number 48 is taken up by the mountainous landscape of the Cevennes, the southeastern part of the French massif Central. Lozère borders the departments Haute Loire in the north Ardeche and Gard in the East, Herault in the south, Aveyron in the southwest and Cantal in the north-west.

Regions

• Margeride in the north, granite hill country with dense forests and extensive pastures, heathland and streams, continues in the neighboring departments Cantal and Haute Loire away
• Aubrac in the far west, highlands of basalt rock with rivers and lakes, settles in Cantal and in the Aveyron away.
• Cevennes in the southeast, slate mountain range between the mountains Aigoual (1565 m) and Lozère (1699 m)
• Grands causes in the southwest, extensive, dry limestone plateau with numerous karst caves. This landscape is traversed by the deeply cutting river valley of the Tarn (Gorges du Tarn)

places

• Mende is the prefecture (administrative seat) of the department.
• Florac
• Sainte-Enimie, very pretty little town rich in history on the upper reaches of the Tarn

Other goals

• Cevennes National Park
• Natural park Grands causes
• Gorges du Tarn, narrow and deeply cut river valley of the Tarn

background

For once, this department is named after not a river, but the 1699 meter high Lozère mountain, which is part of the Massif Central. The river Tarn rises from it and from here to the west through the départements Camouflage and Tarn-et-Garonne flows.

The "Mediterranean agrarian-rural cultural landscape of the Causses and Cevennes", which is largely located in the south of this department, has been registered as part of the UNESCO World Heritage since 2011.

language

Occitan dialects are traditionally spoken here. Practically everyone should understand and speak standard French these days.

getting there

By plane

The international airport Montpellier is about 180 km south (about 2 hours by car), there are at least seasonal direct flights from German-speaking countries. About the same distance, but to the north is the airport Clermont-Ferrand. The smaller airport Rodez-Aveyron is about 90 km to the west, mainly flights from Paris-Orly land there.

By train

In terms of railway technology, Lozère is rather poorly developed. Regional express trains (TER) depart twice a day from Nîmes via Alès to Mende, for this route you need a little over three hours, once a day the TER even runs from Narbonne and Montpellier to Mende. One IC and two TERs stop daily in each direction between Nîmes and Clermont-Ferrand at La Bastide / St-Laurent-les-Bains station in the far east of the department; there you can change to a bus in the direction of Mende. A train from Clermont-Ferrand to Beziers and vice versa in Aumont-Aubrac and Marvejols stops once a day. Otherwise, the SNCF mainly uses buses to develop the region. From Paris, for example, you can take the IC to Clermont-Ferrand, where you can change to a bus to Mende (via Aumont-Aubrac and Marvejols). It takes 6:40 hours from Paris to Mende.

By bus

The French state railways (SNCF) operate three buses a day from Clermont-Ferrand via Aumont-Aubrac and Marvejols to Mende, they take around three hours. There is another bus a day between Le Puy-en-Velay and Marvejols via Mende.

In the street

The A 75 motorway runs through the west of this department between Clermont-Ferrand and Montpellier. The east can be reached on the national roads N 88 from Saint-Etienne and Le Puy-en-Velay or N 106 of Nîmes and Alès.

mobility

Tourist Attractions

• Château du Champ, at Altier. First built as a castle in the 13th century, remodeled into a castle in the 15th century and renewed again in the 18th century. Is still owned by the family and can only be viewed in exceptional cases.last change: not specified

• Château de la Caze. Renaissance castle in Laval-du-Tarn, now a 4-star hotel.last change: not specified

• Ruins of the high medieval rock castle Castelbouc, at Sainte-Enimie. last change: not specified

activities

• Walking with a donkey
• Climbing in the Gorges du Tarn - one of the most important climbing areas in the south of France with 700 different climbing routes

kitchen

• Sheep cheese is a local specialty Tomme de Lozere.
• Typical dishes are also Aligot (a kind of cheese and potato puree with garlic), which is traditionally eaten with a hearty bratwurst; Truffade (a pan dish, which also mainly consists of potatoes and cheese, which are baked in the pan to form a kind of casserole) and quite similar Retortillate; Pouteille (a hearty stew in which pork's feet, beef stew and other ingredients are cooked in red wine, the place of La Canourge in the west of Lozère is believed to originate) and fougasse (a bread with a soft crust and thick and soft inside, related to the Italian focaccia).

nightlife

security

climate

trips

literature

Web links

http://www.lozere.pref.gouv.fr/ - Official website of the Lozère department