Auvergne produces five world-renowned PDO (Protected Designation of Origin, in French Appellation d’origine protégée, AOP) cheeses: Saint-Nectaire, Cantal, Salers, Fourme d’Ambert, and Bleu d’Auvergne. The last two are blue cheeses. More information can be found here. It was raining in the morning, so we skipped hiking and went for a […]
On this hike (13.4K in 3h 30mins, D+/D- 360m) we expected a different scenery since it was going to be at the lower altitude by the lake, far from the mountains. Actually this hike almost did not happen at all; as soon as we reached our car and started driving […]
Villages of Saint-Martin-Cantalès This was an easy and more scenic hike (11.15K in 3h 10mins, D+/D- 308m) starting from the little village of Saint-Martin-Cantalès, and passing through or by several others. There are no pictures of them since they basically consisted of just one or two houses, and there was […]
Aurillac As usual, we spent the first day exploring the town we were based in. Aurillac, the capital of the Cantal department, is known for various things, such as being the Historic umbrella capital of France (half of the umbrellas produced in 1999 were made there), and its Cheese Center, […]
We just came back from a two-week vacation of which we spent the first week hiking in the Mounts of Cantal in the mid-west of the Massif Central, having the base in Aurillac, and the second week driving home, stopping on our way at various places for scenic hikes, mainly […]
Knowing that the Sunday will be rainy and stormy — the thunderstorm started at 4am. and it is still going on as I am writing this at noon — we opted for a hike on Saturday. This time we headed a little closer to home and an easier drive away […]
Yesterday we joined our French/Hungarian/Croatian friends to a gorgeous hike on the North-Eastern part of the Chartreuse range, within about 40-minute drive from home. This was quite an interesting area, and quite different from the scenery we are used to seeing on Chartreuse. It was quite a long day — […]
It has been quite quiet here lately, partly because we have not had much exciting and interesting news or adventures to report, and partly because we were out of town for three weeks on our annual bicycle tour. This time we did Le Tour de Bourgogne. We will post pictures […]
Certainly no one could have missed the havoc the recent heavy rains have caused in Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, and Switzerland. This has probably been the worst Summer we have experienced in the French alps, and we have had our fair share of rain, too, but nothing clearly as bad as […]