The best running trails around Luc

Nice village for overnight stay or lunch

This charming rural town located in the heart of Margeride offers an ideal setting for cycling. Its cafes and restaurants allow you to stop there in the middle or end of your outing.

The setting here is enchanting with beautiful round hills punctuated by meadows and forests with, further on, the Langouyrou, a pretty stream.

Sitting at 920 metres (3,018 ft), Langogne is a picturesque rural commune with plentiful food and accommodation options. You can take a break in one of its numerous cafés in the old centre.

In 1978, a few friends founded an association to safeguard and enhance the Château de Luc. Its purpose is to preserve and restore these vestiges, but also to deepen their history and make it known to the public. The work carried out jointly, association and successive municipal teams allowed the restoration of the keep in 1994 with the installation of orientation tables, then that of the main building in 2008 thus allowing the organization of animations at the Castle. THE MUNICIPALITY OF LUC AND THE ASSOCIATION OF FRIENDS OF THE CHÂTEAU DE LUC INVITE VISITORS TO RESPECT THESE PLACES THAT WILL SEE OUR HISTORY.

Around 1380, during the Hundred Years War, a large troop of Englishmen and road warriors tried to seize it, but in vain. During the Wars of Religion, a garrison on foot and on horseback was installed in this fortress to defend the region. Luc's castle seems to have been dismantled around 1630, on the order of Richelieu. In 1878, a statue of Notre Dame de Luc was erected on the keep. A few months later, Robert Louis Stevenson, on his trip to the Cévennes, passed in front of the castle and stopped at Luc. The Revolution, the abolition of feudal rights, the harsh climate, the challenge of time had greatly degraded it.

LUC, from the Latin LUCUS "Sacred Wood", is one of the oldest inhabited sites in Gévaudan. In Celtic times, the promontory on which this castle stands today was a place of worship dedicated to the God Mercury who gave his name to the forest of Mercoire. From the 12th century, a fortified castle replaced the dwellings. It becomes one of the most important in the region. The first owners bear the title of Prince of Luc, Count of Luc. Enlarged over the alliances, it has kept despite its state the imposing signs of a military fortress. Guardian of the Chemin de Regordane, the pilgrimage route of Saint Gilles, a nerve center between the provinces of Gévaudan and Vivarais, it came under the bishop of Le Puy. But over the centuries, the preponderance of the Bishop of Mende was recognized and the castle passed under his suzerainty. Seat of a co-lordship with the lords Bourbal des Choisinets, Agrain des Hubacs, it successively belonged to the most illustrious families of the region.

Transit link between Vivarais, Velay and South of France, Langogne emerges from its ramparts in the 18th century century. In 1743, Dom Ambroise de Fleury, Prior of the city, made build the Hall, with its fourteen pillars, one of the most large preserved in France. It is a place for the exchange of cereals, farm products, leather, local wool, for chestnuts from the Cévennes, wines and oils from Provence, and other goods from the South and the Mediterranean.