Rises and falls

[shewhomust]

Leaving le Mont-Dore the following morning, we took time to walk up to the waterfall - called, unimaginatively, "la Grande Cascade" - and could have followed the path on up to the pass, but returned instead to the car and drove up. The top of the pass was higher than I had expected, swept by the wind and dotted with herds of caramel coloured cattle, imperturbable as the land fell away from them into blue distances.

We paused to picnic on a high outcrop called the Rocher de l'Aigle, the Eagle's Rock, looking back amazed at the way we had come, and then on to Jonas, a cluster of medieval cave dwellings carved into the volcanic stone of the hillside: a path winds along the cliff face, linking the nobleman's house, the baker's oven, the chapel...

And on into Murat, where we found a bed for the night Au Toit de Lauzes (room 4, to be precise).