From The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, September

Not much happened in the Lozère region of southern France in the late 20th century – except for my wedding. People in the village still talk about it. So do I. It was remarkable on several counts.

Firstly, that any woman, let alone an attractive French one, should accept me was beyond miraculous. Locals round the bar at Chez Magne agreed. Enthusiastically. Secondly, Lozère is mountainous, wild and, in consequence, almost empty.

At the Mediterranean end of the Massif Central, it is the least populated of all the French counties. Its 73,000 souls are scattered 14 to the square kilometre (compared to England, which packs in 383). So the odds on meeting – never mind marrying – a Lozerien are close to zero. Especially if you come from Preston, Lancashire.

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And, thirdly, my mother-in-law disliked me from the moment I stepped into her kitchen. She had destined her daughter for a local accountant nicknamed Canard (‘Duck’) and never got over the blow. Villagers, who turn out joyously en masse for any wedding, all stayed home for ours, for fear of compounding her distress.

But the ceremony went ahead anyway. The bride wore white and the priest wore wellies. He had, he explained, urgent gardening business directly afterwards and didn’t want to waste time.

And then we spent a magical few days as my new wife introduced me to her homeland. I’d never seen such heart-stopping stretches of country, such big skies, such tough living. As well as being France’s emptiest quarter, Lozère is also its highest. The Alps and Pyrenees rise further, but they go up and down. Lozère is almost all up, around 1,000m on average. At such altitudes, farming life is unbelievably rugged. Running water and tractors are relative novelties.

In a brand-new blue Citröen 2CV, we drove across vast limestone tablelands, deserted except for distant clumps of sheep. We dodged along some of Europe’s grandest gorges, where geology scrambles the senses. Imperial eagles and griffon vultures wheeled round craggy cliff edges.

Stone villages hunkered down, stalwart against time and the elements. By the time we got 20km from my wife’s house, she was considered ‘foreign’ by locals; and I, a real, foreign foreigner, was a truly puzzling phenomenon. Dogs rushed out to greet us. Villagers were more wary. Many older women had moustaches I envied. And the men, their reticence conquered, were astonished to learn that, in Britain, we didn’t kill the family pig in autumn.

To the north, upland moors were full of wildflowers, forest and dashing streams. Rickety wood-and-wire fences kept in honey-robed Aubrac cattle, which seemed to have entire mountains to roam. We walked through springy meadows and woods, down peat-bog dips and up to rocky summits. Winding lanes were deserted except, occasionally, at milking time.

There was a feeling that little had changed for a century or so, as much through force of circumstances as through choice. I loved it all and, of course, returned often. But I didn’t get out much. You don’t when staying with my mother-in-law. There are cupboards to put up. So, recently, I decided to go back by myself, not to paint bedrooms and bring in wood, but as a tourist.

Over four high-summer days, I discovered that what had been unchanged back then was still unchanged now. Lozère has indeed embraced contemporary tourisme vert – but the whole point about successful ‘green tourism’ is that you don’t notice it and, in Lozère, you don’t. I went for hours without meeting anyone, local or visitor. I had endless sweeps of high landscape to myself. Later, I had an entire lake to myself. And, in the evening, I ate in rural restaurants as if in the shadow of famine. I fell in love with this old, elemental county all over again. It’s the grandest, and most romantic, in France.

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