The 2018-19 Christmas and New Year Festive season at La Flânerie was enjoyed under the rhythm of dazzling sunshine and clear night skies, with plenty of opportunity for trampling aromatic tracks across The Garrigue (scrubland).

Winter tonics aside, Boxing Day lunch was baguette and bouillabaisse al fresco, and terraces in Uzès were pilled high with split-wood baskets of oysters, and a-buzz with activity throughout the festive week.

Needless to say it was a good opportunity to visit the recently opened Maison Rouge, Museum of the Valleys of the Cévennes - a fine example of long-neglected plot in Saint-Jean-du-Gard, 30270, re-interpreted for future generations.

In its previous life, the site served as a riverside silk mill, and the restored main hall still houses the original machinery supported by freshly imagined storyboards describing an ingenious silky animation from cocoon to elegant frippery.

Of two block parts - old and new - the museum architecture by Lyonnaise architect studio Vurpas is, in itself, worthy of careful attention. The brutal new walls are of iron-red, dry-stone-build and slatted screens of locally sourced chestnut wood known for its extraordinary weatherproof properties. In the piercing summer heat these same screens will provide shelter from the southern sunshine.

Polished concrete floors and contemporary wrought iron hardware - inspired by the artefacts contained therein - make this carefully considered project for future generations.

But this is a mere envelope holding very personal workaday items of those local folk who toiled and lived hard under harsh wilderness conditions, and notably against the backdrop of the Camisard Protestant uprisings that swept throughout The Cévennes and beyond during the 18th century.

Cabinets of curiosities, dioramas and storyboards bring to life a rich and varied existence and present a cornucopia of artisan craft and vernacular skills.

You will find here enchanting room reconstructions, agro-pastoral utensils and uncomfortable attire for pre-industrialised chestnut harvesting and processing, honey- and cheese-making kit, antique kitchenalia and copperware including curious buckets floating upon linen donuts. These copper ferrats were used by Cevenol ladies head-high to transport domestic water.

Robert Louis Stevenson has his place here too as a celebrity visitor in 1878. Travels With a Donkey In The Cévennes is a pioneering classic in outdoor literature, accounting his 12-day hike with a donkey called Modestine.

At this time of year the ethnobotanical garden was in its wintery skeletal state, but this will soon spring into life and embrace two haughty follies reminiscent of more Romantic estates.

From a practical point of view multi-lingual audio tours are available as well as a downloadable app, or bring a sketch book for a lo-tech experience. I’ll be on the look out for a couple of rainy days to revisit, and do the same!

A monumental National Park, and popular destination for lovers of the outdoors, there is much to The Cévennes which this tribute to Cevenol life does very well to communicate. Last year the region was also recognised internationally as Dark Sky Reserve, and the largest in Europe to boot.

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Just ended: Cévennes Étoilées | Photographies de Carole Reboul

Maison Rouge Website

Accomodation at the foothills of The Cévennes

Historic Stone Sanctuary 15km from the fashionable market town of Uzès in the Languedoc region of Southern France.

Recently renovated self-contained apartment on the ground floor of a traditional 17th c. Provençal village house. 

• PERFECT FOR COUPLES

• A RETREAT FOR CREATIVE SOLOS

• STYLISH BOLT-HOLE

• FOODIE DESINATION

• SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES

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