Plateau de Gergovie

La Roche-Blanche

In the spring of 52, Caesar, who had just taken Bourges, came up the Allier and laid siege to Gergovia, the oppidum of the Arverni, perched on a plateau of seventy hectares. He took a forward camp on a neighbouring hill, then launched an assault which his legions pushed too far, right up to the walls; the Gauls threw them back, and Caesar admits to seven hundred soldiers and forty-six centurions lost. He raised the siege. It was his only defeat of the war, and the moment when the Aedui went over to the revolt. The plateau kept its name — Gergoia is attested from the 10th century — but the site of the battle was disputed: when Napoleon III had the Roman camps excavated in 1861–1862 and renamed, in 1865, the village of Merdogne as Gergovie, scholars proposed the Côtes de Clermont, on the other side of the city, and the quarrel lasted a century. The excavations resumed from 1995, led by Yann Deberge and Vincent Guichard, found at the foot of the plateau the two camps and the double ditch that linked them, just as Caesar describes them: Gergovia is indeed here. The monument of 1900, a column of twenty-six metres capped with a helmet, marks the summit; the archaeological museum of the battle, opened in 2019, presents three hundred objects and explains the ground. The Puy de Dôme, where the Arverni built their temple of Mercury, closes the horizon to the west.

Wikipédia — Plateau de Gergovie ↗

Getting there : From Clermont-Ferrand by the A 75 (exit 4) or via Romagnat and the village of Gergovie; a road climbs to the plateau, car parks a few hundred metres from the museum. The plateau is freely accessible, with waymarked paths and orientation tables; the archaeological museum of the battle, at the summit, is paid, open in the afternoon, only on Wednesdays and at weekends outside the school holidays, and closed in January. Allow an hour's walk to go round the rim, from which you can see the puys, the Limagne and the site of the Roman camps, below to the south.

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

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