A MOSAIC OF LANDSCAPES
Each of them corresponds to a descended particular character of geology, the relief, vegetation and the man's action that shaped it. Yet, the landscape that one sees today is not the one of yesterday. It changes to the will of the human work and the agricultural practices.
IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS THE FIRE OF THE EARTH
Haut-Allier, Alagnon… a few millions years of stone and fire storms shaped a landscape of valleys, trays and basins.
The river carved high cliffs in the crystalline rocks and the volcanic extrusions. The tectonic movements provoked downfalls of the pedestal and the constitution of more fertile sedimentary basins watered by the Allier
This river and its affluents constitute the backbone of this territory and confer him its unit
ON BUTTRESSES OF THE MARGERIDE
Dominating the valley of the Allier, on a rough tray at 1000 meters of altitudes, Charraix constitutes an isolated front station in a landscape marked by the ubiquity of the granite.
Difficult but superb environment where moors and forests are punctuated by blocks granite: the «Torses ". To live, men have regrouped and have learned to use the reduced parcels, separated by alignments of ashes. While moving away from the village, the kept aspect blanches himself and gives up room to the course lands intended to sheep.
THE TRUCE OF THROATS
Down below, the Allier, of Prades à Chanteuges, flow again in a narrow and tormented course. The valley presents, however, a humanized aspect. The less steep gradients welcome small cultivated parcels that break the dark forest ribbon of slope zones. Numerous terraces, today masked under a raised moor, testify of an old activity.
The volcanism plays an essential role in the composition of these landscapes. The basaltic tables, put in relief by the erosion, offer some majestic sites to the human installation.
LIMAGNES AND TRAYS OF THE ALLIER
On the way out of the throats, the contrast is striking with the limagnes of Langeac and Brioudes, old basins of downfall.
Of an imposing environment but often hostile, we move away to landscapes where the sweetness to live reign, the easiness of cultures and the harmony of shapes with the softer slopes. Overhanging these basins, trays of the Brivadois and the Chomette are covered with big cultivated parcels. This bare aspect disappears on the edges of the trays where a raised interconnection takes the relay. .
THE RIBEYRE
Shortly after Langeac, the Allier penetrates again in the crystalline pedestal and draw news throats that don't look in anything like the previous.
Many villages benefiting of exceptional sites got settled on a large and cultivated bottom. A lenient climate permitted a fruit production and grape growing of which subsist today only some traces, grapevines and shacks scattered on the quit terraces.
THE COUNTRY OF BLESLE
Descended of cantalian heights, the Alagnon flows in the bottom of a deep valley separating the Tray of the Brivadois from that of the Cézallier. Vast covered basaltic table of moors, the Cézallier is limited by a basaltic organ ledge overhanging small hills.
Numerous narrow, wooded and wild throats alternate with the large enough zones to welcome orchards and pastures that give to this country a kept aspect. An impression that reinforces the presence of grape terraces on the sunniest gradients. .