In August we toured Loire river valley on bicycles for almost three weeks (including driving there and back), altogether 800 kilometers in 14 days of riding. Because of a glitch on my Google Drive account I have not been able to download all the photos from the drive, so I […]
Next week we are leaving for another bike tour in Central France. Today we did a short (37.4km, 3h) recreational practice ride exploring the new bike path along the river Drac, South of Grenoble. It was a very comfortable ride, but we wish there would have been more picnic spots […]
Another visit to the ghost ski station of Saint-Honoré 1500. The previous one was on winter last year when we started a hike to Lac-de-Charlet (1921m) but had to turn back because of the icy snow conditions. Today’s hike was nothing like that. Of course it wasn’t since we are […]
Welcome to the second part of our Auvergne adventure. The weather continued to pamper us. Day 7: Orcival and La Roche Branlante We were on our way to Mont-Dore and Puy-de -Sancy, when we decided to visit the little idyllic, albeit very touristy, town of Orcival we had seen a […]
We spent 11 days hiking on mountains and exploring villages in the Massif Central, a highland area in the South-Central France in Auvergne region (department of Puy-de-Dôme) that consists of plateaus and extinct volcanoes (altogether about 450 of them of which 115 are in Chaîne des Puys, the youngest and […]
We have not been particularly lucky with our attempts to hike to Refuge Font Turbat (2169m) in Valjouffrey valley. Our first attempt was four years ago in December. It was a perfect sunny day but the sun did not reach to the bottom of the valley, so we were freezing. […]
Despite my recent rant, we returned to Chartreuse this Wednesday morning for another hike. We started at Col de la Charmette and climbed to Col de la Grande Vache, then descended to Col de la Sure, again slightly ascended to Goulet d’Hurtières, and then descended back to Col de la […]
To be honest, I am not a fan on forests on Chartreuse range. They are muddy and messy. There’s nothing to see, no scenery, and they are all the same: mostly leafy trees growing on steep slopes, occasional spruce blocking whatever little beam of sunlight that gets filtered through the […]
This Saturday took us to The Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette (Sanctuaire Notre-Dame de La Salette), the site of the Marian apparition to two children in 1846 in La Salette-Fallavaux. The Sanctuary, which has a Basilica, a Chapel, and a hotel for pilgrims, is located at about 1800 […]