| Three kilometres from Clermont-l'Hérault, along the main road to Bédarieux, lies VILLENEUVETTE, a model factory and workers' settlement created in the seventeenth century for the production of high-quality wool for sale in the Mediterranean. Initially successful, the factory eventually closed down in 1954, but the settlement still boasts 85 inhabitants. There's a very nice, if somewhat pricey, hotel tacked on to the village walls – La Source (tel 04.67.96.05.07, hotellasource.com; €40–55; closed mid-Nov to mid-Feb), with a good restaurant (from €15–26), pool and garden. Eight kilometres further west just off the Bédarieux road, in the picturesque little village of MOURÈZE, you'll find an alternative hotel, Les Hauts de Mourez (tel 04.67.94.04.84, fax 04.67.96.25.85; €40–55; closed Nov–March). Further accommodation options are available in Salasc, at the Auberge Campagnard (tel & fax 04.67.96.15.62; €30–40 with breakfast), and at Octon in the comfortable old hotel La Calade (tel & fax 04.67.96.19.21; €30–40; closed mid-Dec to Feb) in the village centre (closed Tues & Wed out of season; menus from €16). Three other interesting and little-visited places east of Clermont are only feasible if you have a car. The first is a very fine dolmen on the end of a low ridge overlooking the D32 – best reached from the village of LE POUGET, where it is signposted. Continuing along the D139, you come within sight of the pale grey ruins of the keep and chapel of the Château d'Aumelas, romantically silhouetted on the edge of the causse (limestone plateau). To reach it by road – considerably further – you need to bear right onto the D114 and then take a dirt track opposite a farm. It's a beautiful and silent place, and the chapel is in near-perfect condition. Two kilometres further along the D114, down an unsigned and bumpy track leading right onto the causse, there is a marvellous and remote silvery chapel, St-Martin-de-Cardonnet, built in the twelfth century – all that remains of an ancient priory.
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