Loudes: Heritage, GR300 and Airport
Accommodation in Loudes
Loudes brings together architectural history, the GR300 route through the town and Le Puy-Loudes Airport. If you are looking for hotels in Loudes, your travel focus can help you choose a destination: would you like to explore the town’s history, include the GR300 in your hiking plans, or are you interested in aviation?
Buildings and their history
At Château de Loudes, also known as Castellum, two large and three small towers remain today. Their number and varying sizes are a concrete architectural detail in the town’s history.
Château de Mestrénac was built around 1250 by the Knights Templar and converted into a small museum in the late 1990s. Its history thus combines a medieval origin with a later use as a museum.
Maison forte de Coubladour was built around 1300 by a noble family. Under the Ancien RĂ©gime, it became an inn for muleteers, known as Auberge du Casque. Its history therefore includes both its construction date and this later function.
Maison de la Béate de Civeyrac was built in 1755 and served as a girls’ school from the 18th to the 19th century. It, too, was converted into a small museum in the late 1990s. If you would like to visit one of the two small museums, check access locally. Mestrénac and Civeyrac share their later use as museums, but their earlier histories have different points of emphasis: the Templars in one case, the history of schooling in the other.
Another dated point of reference is the stone cross at the entrance to Loudes: in 2013, it celebrated its 400th anniversary.
GR300 and Le Puy-Loudes Airport
The GR300 Chemin de Saint-Michel passes through Loudes and is a 103.7-kilometre, ten-day Grande Randonnée route. Its length and duration give you an idea of the scale of an extended hiking trip. This makes the GR300 a different kind of travel plan from exploring individual buildings and their historical uses.
Le Puy-Loudes Airport is in the municipality of Loudes, ten kilometres west of Le Puy-en-Velay. If you are considering a connection to Paris-Orly Airport for your journey, check the flight schedule against your travel dates.
Le Puy-Loudes airfield is located at just under 830 metres above sea level, is surrounded by open countryside and offers a unique view of the volcanic landscapes of Haute-Loire. The airport also serves as a meeting place for people interested in model aviation, aerobatics and flying. Together, the landscape and aviation add further concrete points of interest to help you decide on your trip, alongside the historic buildings and the hiking route through Loudes.
Discover more destinations: Freycenet-la-Tour, La Chapelle-Bertin, La Chaise-Dieu, Saint-Georges-Lagricol, Saint-Didier-En-Velay, Saint-Martin-De-Fugères, Saint-Privat-Du-Dragon, Saint-Just-Près-Brioude.
For the broader travel overview: Haute-Loire.
