La Garde-Guérin et sa tour

Prévenchères

On the plateau overlooking the gorges of the Chassezac, at 900 metres above sea level, La Garde-Guérin locked the most perilous stretch of the Régordane way, the vital artery linking the Massif Central to the Mediterranean, used by merchants and by pilgrims heading down to Saint-Gilles. The road was so dangerous, infested with brigands, that an agreement between the bishop of Mende and the lord Bernard d'Anduze gave birth here to a castrum of a kind unique in France: under the impetus of the barons of Tournel, a community of knights known as "pariers" — from the Latin pares, the equals — settled here. Thirty-one knights, equal in rights and duties, shared the lordship between them: they escorted travellers, animals and goods, and collected tolls, guiding fees and "pulvérage", a levy on flocks on their seasonal migration. Each was determined to remain master in his own house: their fortified houses are still separated by a gap of thirty centimetres, the "douplette" or "pan du Roi". The keep, raised between the 12th and 14th centuries, rises 21.50 metres above the village; its three vaulted storeys served as storeroom and living quarters. The church of Saint-Michel, Romanesque and 12th-century, keeps finely carved capitals and bells of 1643. Listed as early as 1929, the village has been one of the Plus Beaux Villages de France since 1992 — and from the top of the tower, the eye takes in the whole of the old pilgrims' road.

Getting there : Fortified village at 900 m above sea level, overlooking the gorges of the Chassezac, reached by the D906 between Villefort and La Bastide-Puylaurent (48800 Prévenchères). Car park at the village entrance, free to wander all year round; admission charge to climb the tower (information +33 4 66 46 87 30).

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound