On a day in early October 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson ended his walk through the Cévennes at Saint-Jean-du-Gard, and sold his donkey. The Scottish writer, then twenty-seven, had spent twelve days crossing the mountains with a stubborn grey animal called Modestine, and he recorded the adventure in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, one of the first books about hiking for pleasure. The route he followed is now a long-distance path, the GR70, the Chemin de Stevenson, and walkers with sticks and rucksacks are a common sight in the town.
Saint-Jean-du-Gard sits at the foot of the Cévennes, where the Gardon river runs out of the mountains in a deep, green valley. It is a town of about three thousand, with a fine seventeenth-century humpback bridge, the Pont Vieux, narrow streets and a long tradition of silk, which was once the main industry. The mulberry trees that fed the silkworms still grow in the hills, and a museum of the Cévennes valleys recounts the story. A little steam train runs from Anduze, a tourist line along the river, which is a pleasure to watch go by.
The town is also the start of the Corniche des Cévennes, the road that climbs along the ridge toward Florac. The road was built after the Camisard revolt, a Protestant uprising in the early eighteenth century, when the authorities wanted to move troops through the mountains quickly, and it clings to the side of the hills with a series of bends and views over deep valleys. The surface is good, the bends are rhythmic and the traffic is light, and the ridge, covered in chestnut and pine, gives a sense of space.
The chestnut was the staple of the mountain villages, its flour used for bread and porridge, and a good deal of the landscape is shaped by the terraces built to grow it. In autumn, the woods are filled with collectors, and a plate of roast chestnuts or a chestnut cake is a taste of the region. The weather can change fast, and storms in the Cévennes are dramatic, with sudden floods in the rivers.
Saint-Jean-du-Gard has fuel, and a number of cafes and restaurants, and is the natural place to stop before the climb. Anduze and Alès are the bigger towns for any further supplies.