Tour of the Pays de Cunlhat in the Livradois

The Livradois is understated mid-mountain country: hundred-year-old broadleaf forests, conifers, granite everywhere and grassy paths that wind between the farms. You never climb very high (from 636 to 900 m), but the terrain rolls non-stop, and it is that constant rolling that ends up wearing out your legs.

Cunlhat is not a village like the others: it grew up around an abbey, has held a market for centuries, and the film director Maurice Pialat was born there. All around, each hamlet keeps its bread ovens, its crosses and its stone wash houses.

Our take: this is a properly tough loop, not a Sunday stroll. You need stamina to swallow those 30 km in one go. The reward is simple: jumping into the Cunlhat lake at the finish. One for strong walkers and trail runners who like going long.

The start is at the Cunlhat leisure centre, on the edge of the lake. First you climb towards the village, then head for the hamlet of Le Coin before plunging into the woods. First stone bridge, first climb back up to Boscène, and that sets the tone: it climbs, it drops, it never really lets up.

The loop then links the villages of the plateau. Le Bost, Tissonières, then Ceilloux and its church, which you walk past on the way up. Head for La Cissartie and Echinlet, where the tarmac road quickly gives way to a track. You alternate between woodland edges, low stone walls and little crossroads marked by a cross.

The route keeps unrolling hamlets: Pradelles, Fayet, Le Verdier, La Guillaumie, Courtesseire. At La Vironne, you pass a bread oven before setting off again towards Rouchoux and Chabrol. That is what gives the route its flavour: the granite buildings that punctuate every village.

The last third is more undulating: Bruneilles, a stream to cross, then Olagnier and the climb to Terrol. You pass its 15th-century château, skirt the entrance to the golf course, go by the Sainte-Anne cross, and the final descent brings you back to the lake where you started.

Allow a good day: around nine hours of walking for nearly 30 km and 750 m of total ascent. The fittest run it as a trail loop in half a day. Best done from late spring to autumn, when the grassy paths are dry.