We spent the night in just another amazing nature spot – a big shoutout for the app Park4Night that never fails us on our road trips.

The morning started with the news about “Wagner” going on Moscow with an armed rebellion. I mean, you can imagine how crazed we were, so moving from that spot incredibly difficult. Still, there was another “most beautiful village of France” waiting for our visit, so we made a huge effort to unglue ourselves from the phones and drive to La Garde Guérin.

On this trip we had only two stops for bathing, and one of them was on the Lac de Villefort. It is a big outdoors activities hub, but we only took our time for a big picninc pause and then a very short but extremely satisfying moment in the water (which was much colder that what we had expected!). The road around the lake is very beautiful too with some amazing castles on its banks.

Château du Champ

Hiking to the pic of Mont Lozère is a must. We were a bit confused about the names but at the end found out that le Mont Lozère is the whole area of these mountain formations and forests while Pic de Finiels is its summit. A 7 km walk there and back was picturesque and lovely, however here I had another sad accident – losing one of my watercolor brushes. Sadly, that was just one of several losses I experienced during this trip… (rip my ear pods and an earing…)

Before going to the trip, I made some research and discovered the existence of a book “Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes” by Robert Louis Stevenson – the author of “Treasure Island” and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. It’s a short travel story, which, to be honest, left quite mixed feeling – on one hand reading travel diaries from the 19^th century is very interesting, but on the other – constant beating of the poor donkey is hardly a thing you want to read about. Still, this book was taken in action for the local tourism promotion – farms renting a donkey (!) for a bit of Stevenson’s journey is a thing here. It felt particularly in this little beautiful town of Pont Montvert.

Our first morning task was hiking to the waterfall Cascade de Runes. It has nothing in common with the waterfall we saw in Aubrac but its hidden location deep in the nature made it feel like a place from a fairy tale. Unfortunately, even if we came there quite early, we didn’t have a single moment alone with it, so probably an earlier start would have been better. I will underline the importance of bringing the correct shoes for this hike, although short and easy, has some steep patches that might be dangerous without an appropriate shoewear.

We were determined to cover the sad food experience from the day before and found in advance a perfect spot – L’Auberge Cévenole near Florac. The sweet taste of justice!

Thus, we discovered that ancient menhirs is not only the Breton thing in France, there are a tone of them in Lozère too! However, once arrived, we had to admit that looking from afar at the ladscape and try to sketch it was more than enough for us this time. If we hadn’t already started feeling saturated with this trip, it would have been a lovely walk.

The last night stop of this trip was also the most beautiful – again, I can’t imagine what we would do without Park4Night. The light evening mist, the gentle golden sun and evening birds singing – that was an amazing way to say goodbye to our nights in Lozère.

Another geological curiosity – Chaos de Nîmes le Vieux, with some stunning stone formations surrounded by nature and emptiness. The walking path follows a picturesque tour of 3 km approximately but covering it took us an eternity – we were too busy sketching and googling every plant on our way.

Tired and happy we first ate our second (and the last) aligot and then drove to Mont Aigoual – a summit with a 1 565 altitude also used as a meteorological station. The crooked trees under the constant local winds made us think about Mallorca and one of the lighthouses we visited there – the last place I expected to think of on this trip.

At this point we were really exhausted and were savoring the idea of getting back home and most of all – to the shower! Because even if the half-vanlife is amazing, in our case there are some huge drawbacks…

On our way back to Toulouse we couldn’t help stopping for a swimming pause in Castelbouc – an amazing village. Here we are still in Lozère but in a bit different place – Les Gorges du Tarn. Our very first blog spot was about this trip eight years ago, as it totally deserves a separate visit altogether. So, Castelbouc is just one of fantastically beautiful spots on the Tarn. Another one was Sainte-Enime, which deserves its place among the “most beautiful villages of France”. Hey, we visited a whole bunch of them this time!

Quickly crossing Aveyron on our way made us realize once again that even if it’s been three years that we travel around South-West of France, we can’t at all say that we see an end of it – this country is stunning and I feel very privileged to be able to explore it the way we do.

• Into the Green in Lozère, Part 1: Aubrac
• Into the Green in Lozère, Part 2: Cévennes