Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole
The Vía Podiensis
Saint-Alban is a small town in the Limagnole valley that serves as a welcome return to civilization after the remote Margeride crossing. You'll find basic services here: a grocery store, bakeries, restaurants, and accommodation options including gites and hotels. There's a pharmacy and post office.
The town is dominated by its Renaissance castle, originally a 12th-century fortress of the Lords of Apcher that was rebuilt in the 15th century. Today it houses the tourist office and hosts exhibitions in its courtyard. The town also has an unexpected claim to fame: its psychiatric hospital, founded in 1821, became the birthplace of institutional psychotherapy during World War II, when psychiatrists and resistance fighters sheltered patients from Vichy deportation policies.
Saint-Alban has a pleasant, unassuming character. It's a working town rather than a tourist destination, and pilgrims passing through are part of the rhythm rather than the main event.
The castle of Saint-Alban was held by the House of Apcher from the 13th century onward. The Marquis d'Apcher was the same nobleman who organized the final hunt for the Beast of Gevaudan in 1767.
During World War II, the psychiatric hospital at Saint-Alban became a center of resistance and radical innovation. When Vichy policies led to the starvation deaths of thousands of psychiatric patients across France, the doctors at Saint-Alban, including the Catalan exile Francois Tosquelles and communist psychiatrist Lucien Bonnafe, kept their patients alive through local farming networks and resistance connections. The hospital's death rate stayed below 10 percent while others lost more than 40 percent of their patients. This experience gave birth to institutional psychotherapy, a movement that transformed French mental health care.
From Saint-Alban, the path climbs back up to the plateau, heading south toward Aumont-Aubrac. The terrain is rolling and mostly gentle, crossing farmland and passing through a series of small hamlets. The landscape is transitional here: you're leaving the granite Margeride behind and approaching the volcanic Aubrac. The distance to Aumont-Aubrac is roughly 16 km.
Accommodation in Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole.
| Gîte Les Souliers de Saint-Jacques 28€ 8 |
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| Gîte d´étape Le Penote 15€ 4 |
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| Gîte-hôtel du Centre 13€ 10 |
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| Gîte d´étape L'Europe 15-20€ 19 |
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| Gîte Aux amis dans le Chemin Donativo€ 8 |
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| Gîte d´étape Le Gévaudan 30**€ 12 |
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| Gîte Le Refuge du Pèlerin 20€ 12 |
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| Gîte Antre Nous 17-20€ 11 |
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