A town on the ancient Regordane highway. In the days when the king of France was mostly king of Paris and a section of modern day northern France, he never-the-less owned a small piece of the southern region as well and a single port on the Mediterranean (Aigues Mortes). To get from Paris to the south, without using the Rhone valley, there was no choice but to traverse the mountains of central France over land. This gave rise the the so-called Regordane “highway” and a string of prosperous market towns along the way. Concoules is one of those towns. Perched on the flanks of Mount Lozère – near the Villefort pass (a key passing point on the Regordane) – the town was visited by many Paris-to-the-Mediterranean travellers. Today the town is a sleepy somewhat forgotten place on a winding highway in the mountains where few people live and few pass by. The church in Concoules has a nice “clocher à peigne” shown in this picture. (a belltower with 4 slots for bells but only one bell)