Designed specifically for tourists and containing itineraries for varying lengths of visit, this is a guide to the Auvergne and the Rhone Valley. It includes details of local culture, economy, history, geography, architecture and places of interest, as well as practical information. The activity of long-extinct volcanoes has created extraordinary rock formations - needles, domes, lava flows, craters and lakes, gorges and plateaux. Since the earliest days of recorded history the Rhone Valley has been a means of comunication between northern Europe and Mediterranean basin. The great artery of civilization has been influenced by over 2000 years of history, from Gallo-Roman sites in Vienne and Lyon to the 20th-century technology installed along the course of the river. the traditional rural way of life, unaltered by the demands of popular tourism, has been preserved in the Auvergne and also in the Ardeche and the Vivarais.