Most visitors to the Cévennes come for the gorges, but the real character of this country lies on top of them. The causses are high limestone plateaus, treeless and wind-scoured, where sheep have grazed for millennia and the horizon runs on for fifty kilometres. Cut deep into them are the gorges of the Tarn and the Jonte, with their cliffs and caves, and to the east the Cévennes mountains rise in ridges of schist and chestnut forest. The whole area is listed by UNESCO as a cultural landscape of Mediterranean agriculture and pastoralism, and much of it falls within the Cévennes National Park, set up in 1970.
Meyrueis, with a little over a thousand inhabitants, lies in a green cleft at the meeting of the Jonte and the Béthuzon. It is a pleasant base, with cafes in the square and fuel, if not much more. Florac is the other nearby town, with just under two thousand people, on the edge of the Tarn gorge. Mende, the biggest town in the area at nearly fifteen thousand, lies a good thirty kilometres away and is the better bet for a bigger shop or garage.
The roads are some of the best in France. The Corniche des Cévennes follows a ridge high above the valleys, with views for miles and a long sequence of bends. Along the gorges the road narrows, with overhanging rock, tunnels and pull-outs that suit a short stop. On the plateaus, the bends are wide and the straights long, and the wind can be strong. Surfaces are generally good, but watch for loose gravel and sheep. In summer the gorges are busy with kayakers and sightseers, and the most popular sections are slow.
Griffon vultures, reintroduced in the 1970s, are common over the gorges and are easy to watch from the roadside. The Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson walked through here in 1878 with a donkey called Modestine, and the trail he followed is now a popular long-distance path.
Spring and autumn are best. Summer is hot on the plateaus but pleasant in the gorges, and winter brings snow and ice to the high ground, which can close roads without warning.