Volcanoes of Auvergne: the Puys, the Sancy and the Cantal

Clermont-Ferrand is built of its own volcanoes. The cathedral of Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption is cut from dark Volvic lava, so its Gothic spires look carved from soot against the sky; climb the Bayette tower for the first view of the Puy de Dôme. Five minutes away, the Romanesque basilica of Notre-Dame-du-Port hides in a sunken square, pale and calm, with a crypt that smells of cold stone. End on the place de Jaude under Bartholdi’s bronze Vercingetorix. Charge at the TotalEnergies high-power station on boulevard Lafayette.

Why stop hereCharge nearby: TotalEnergies (TotalEnergies HPC Clermont-Ferrand) — typical arrival 30%, about 25 min to 80%. Why stop here: Clermont-Ferrand Cathedral, Notre-Dame-du-Port, Place de Jaude. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

Leave the car at the foot of the Puy de Dôme and ride the Panoramique des Dômes rack railway to the summit, where the ruins of a Roman temple to Mercury look out over some eighty cones of the Chaîne des Puys, a UNESCO site, lined up like a frozen herd. If you have legs for it, walk around the neat crater of the Puy de Pariou. Then south to Orcival, a village folded around a grey Romanesque basilica that keeps a Virgin in Majesty, and up to the Col de Guéry, where the Roches Tuilière and Sanadoire stand like two ruined towers over the valley. Lake Guéry, the highest in Auvergne, lies just beyond. Sleep in the spa town of Le Mont-Dore on a hotel socket.

Why stop hereWhy stop here: Le Mont-Dore, Téléphérique du Sancy. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

Morning belongs to the Sancy. The cable car lifts you above Le Mont-Dore, and a long wooden staircase climbs to the summit of the Puy de Sancy, at 1,885 metres the highest point of central France, with the Dordogne beginning as a trickle somewhere below. Come down past the Grande Cascade, then drive east to Lac Chambon, where the ruined castle of Murol sits on its hill like a crown left on a table. Stop in Saint-Nectaire for the Romanesque church on its rise and a slab of the village’s soft cheese from a farm. Arrive at Besse, a lava-stone village with a belfry gate, charge at the Freshmile point on the route des Lacs, and drive the few minutes to Lac Pavin, a round, deep crater lake, at dusk.

Why stop hereCharge nearby: Freshmile (Freshmile Besse) — typical arrival 35%, about 60 min to 80%. Why stop here: Besse. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

A long, quiet day across the Cézallier, a high, almost treeless plateau of pastures, stone burons and wide skies where you may not meet another car for twenty minutes. Drop down to Condat in its wooded valley, then Riom-ès-Montagnes, where the Avèze distillery has made bitter yellow gentian liqueur since 1929. In Mauriac, charge at the Freshmile point on Place du 14 Juillet and look into the basilica of Notre-Dame-des-Miracles, built of dark volcanic stone. The last climb brings you to Salers, all grey lava, stone-slab roofs and turrets; walk from the Grande Place to the Barrouze esplanade as the sun sets over the Maronne valley.

Why stop hereWhy stop here: Salers, Esplanade de Barrouze. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

The finest road of the trip. It climbs through the Cirque du Falgoux, a vast green amphitheatre of old volcanic walls, to the Pas de Peyrol, at 1,589 metres the highest road pass in the Massif Central. Park and take the stone and timber steps to the top of Puy Mary: half an hour of effort for a ridge-top view over the valleys radiating from the old Cantal volcano, the largest in Europe. Descend east through Dienne, with its Romanesque church in the meadows, to Murat, a town of dark basalt houses beneath the Rocher de Bonnevie and its statue of the Virgin. Charge at the e-Vadea point on avenue du Docteur Louis Mallet.

Why stop hereCharge nearby: e-Vadea (e-Vadea Murat) — typical arrival 35%, about 50 min to 80%. Why stop here: Rocher de Bonnevie. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

A short drive across the Planèze, a basalt tableland of hay meadows, brings you to Saint-Flour, perched on the edge of its plateau above the Ander like a ship’s prow. Walk the upper town: the austere cathedral of dark basalt keeps an old wooden Black Christ, and from the terrace behind it you see the volcanic organ pipes on which the town stands. Charge at the Powerdot station in the Montplain shopping area, then give the afternoon to the south: Eiffel’s red Garabit viaduct of 1884, leaping the gorge of the Truyère, and the ruined castle of Alleuze on its rock above a lake, best seen from the roadside pull-off as the light turns.

Why stop hereCharge nearby: Powerdot (Powerdot Saint-Flour Montplain) — typical arrival 40%, about 25 min to 80%. Why stop here: Saint-Flour Cathedral. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

East along the upper Allier, one of the wildest rivers in France, through gorges of granite and basalt where salmon still run. Stop at Langeac, then climb to the abbey church of Chanteuges, set on a basalt spur above the water with a small cloister that hears only the river. The road over the Velay hills drops at last onto one of the strangest views in Europe: Le Puy-en-Velay, red roofs piled beneath volcanic needles, a giant red statue of the Virgin on one, a tiny chapel balanced on another. Charge at the Tesla Supercharger in Brives-Charensac on the edge of town.

Why stop hereCharge nearby: Tesla Supercharger (Tesla Supercharger Brives-Charensac) — typical arrival 25%, about 25 min to 80%. Why stop here: Saint-Michel d'Aiguilhe, Le Puy Cathedral, Notre-Dame de France. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

A day on foot. Climb the 268 steps to Saint-Michel d’Aiguilhe, a chapel built in the tenth century on top of an 82-metre volcanic plug, its doorway trimmed with coloured stone in a pattern that seems to have come from Moorish Spain. Then up through the cobbled old town to the cathedral, striped in dark and pale volcanic stone, where pilgrims gather each morning before setting out on the Way of St James to Compostela. Climb inside the red statue of Notre-Dame de France, cast from cannons taken at Sevastopol, and look down on the whole town. In the afternoon, drive five minutes to the fortress of Polignac on its basalt table. Eat Puy green lentils for supper.

Why stop hereCharge nearby: Tesla Supercharger (Tesla Supercharger Brives-Charensac) — typical arrival 25%, about 25 min to 80%. Why stop here: Saint-Michel d'Aiguilhe, Le Puy Cathedral, Notre-Dame de France. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

Back north through a gentler Auvergne of Romanesque churches. At Lavaudieu, a village in a bend of the Senouire, the only surviving Romanesque cloister in Auvergne rests on slender columns, some of them twisted, and the old refectory still has its medieval wall painting. In Brioude, the basilica of Saint-Julien, the largest Romanesque church in the region, has floors of river pebbles and painted vaults in warm pink and ochre; charge at the Plenitude station on avenue d’Auvergne. Detour to Usson, where basalt columns lean out of the hill on which Queen Margot was held for some twenty years, then end at Issoire, whose church of Saint-Austremoine is painted inside from floor to vault. Charge at Carrefour Energies by Allego.

Why stop hereCharge nearby: Allego (Carrefour Energies by Allego Issoire) — typical arrival 50%, about 20 min to 80%. Why stop here: Saint-Austremoine. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.

The last morning belongs to Montpeyroux, a hilltop village of golden arkose stone whose keep you can climb for a long view back to the Sancy. Then Riom, the old capital of the dukes of Auvergne, built of dark Volvic stone, where the Sainte-Chapelle keeps its fifteenth-century stained glass; charge at the Tesla Supercharger on rue Louis Armstrong. Above Volvic, the ruined Château de Tournoël watches over the Limagne plain from the edge of the Puys. Close the loop in Clermont-Ferrand with a last evening on place de Jaude, the black cathedral spires above you and the Puy de Dôme on the skyline.

Why stop hereCharge nearby: TotalEnergies (TotalEnergies HPC Clermont-Ferrand) — typical arrival 30%, about 25 min to 80%. Why stop here: Clermont-Ferrand Cathedral, Notre-Dame-du-Port, Place de Jaude. Access: walk from the overnight — leave the car.