The Cevenne is a wonderful place to visit but it can darken the soul when the land is covered in dense spreading conifers and heavy chestnut trees. The shade & the shadows hide & create monsters & ghouls to pick at your imagination. The sun fails to penetrate the foliage and gnomesteads remain undiscovered and ancient villages suck in visitors to gape at empty windows & dusty doorways. Any sign of human life own here tends to be on the topside of 60, leaving younger years to a few straggling tourists who forget that the visiting season ends with the start of September.

Saint-Guileme-le-Desert is a popular tourist watering hole on the edge of the Herault region with all the required elements for a gnomevillage – narrow, cobbled streets,

medieval low-doored shops selling crafts & honey & ‘wood’ goods, a square

a church

an ancient Abbey on the Pilgrim Route (you know all about that from previous blogs!)

evidence of high hill forts from early times with testing trails that provide a challenge to modern traiblazing athletes.

At the end of a hairpin lane, it tempts families up for a few hours. Never crammed, the limited sized carpark sees to that, the visitors spread them selves through the narrow lanes & burrows and then leave the ancients to their own haven. It would be interesting to know how many folk actually live here today. The answer may well be in double figures – a proper ghost town!