Château de Mauzun (road circuit no. 9)

This very pleasant circuit will take you to the imposing fortress of Mauzun, which you can see to the west from the cycle-touring centre, before you reach St-Dier-d’Auvergne, where you can admire the fine church and the former fortified priory. After a last climb via St-Flour-l’Étang, you will come back down to Courpière along the Dore gorges, on “la route des fraises” (the strawberry road), created specifically in 1958 to make it easier to transport the strawberries grown in the Domaise and St-Flour-l’Étang areas to Courpière, then the strawberry capital. In fact, more than 200 tonnes of strawberries were harvested every year in the 1950s. Ten years later, this market was to decline sharply in the face of Spanish competition, but also because of the degeneration of the local variety “Madame Moutot”.