The current abbey church was completed by the end of the thirteenth century and is widely considered by medieval art specialists to be one of the most beautiful churches in the region. Long before Stevenson arrived, Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille was a thriving monastic community (records show that an abbey existed here as long ago as the fifth century). Father Adam owned a small donkey that he used to pull his cart and after some vigorous haggling, Stevenson secured her purchase for the princely sum of 65 francs and a glass of brandy.
Stevenson was in need of a beast of burden to carry his sleeping pack, food supplies and other essentials needed for his journey. It was in the market place of Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille, that Robert Louis Stevenson met with an old man, one of the townsfolk known as Father Adam. Water fountain in the market place of Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille Quite often, this route did take a less strenuous path, often following a river along the valley to the next village. Most of the time, he followed the roads which, in the nineteenth century, would have been well-travelled by merchants and local farmers. Map of the Chemin de Stevenson from Le Puy-en-Velay to AlèsĪs I reread Stevenson’s account of his journey in Travels with a Donkey (available to download free from the Gutenberg Project), I realised that although we passed through the same towns, the route he took often bore little resemblance to the path the GR 70 follows today. On most days as we walked this route in 2016, we wondered if Stevenson had set a compass each morning, pointing at his destination for the day, and pushed on with little regard for the terrain! If there was a hill to be climbed or a ridge to be conquered, climb it or conquer it we did! But, as you’ll see from the map below, the Chemin de Stevenson twists and curls its way south in anything but a straight line! Where is the Chemin de Stevenson in France? Now extended at both ends to link Le Puy-en-Velay to Alès, the Chemin de Stevenson, or GR 70, is a spectacular walk-of gentle slopes, endless ridges, relentless hills and majestic landscapes. Over eleven days, the pair travelled through the Cévennes (one of France’s most loved National Parks) and arrived in Saint-Jean-du-Gard, having walked a little over 225 kilometres (140 miles). (Published September 2020, last updated February 2022) When Scottish author, Robert Louis Stevenson, left the village of Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille in September 1878, with only his two feet and his donkey Modestine to carry him south, he could not have imagined that one hundred years later, thousands of walkers would be inspired to follow in his footsteps.
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