Les Angles (Gard) On the third day we wanted to avoid driving (and more sitting), so we searched for hikes in the neighborhood, and found an extensive network of trails starting just behind the house. After 200 meters we came up to an interesting cave system ‘Carrere du Trou de […]
When planning where and how to spend our 20th wedding anniversary, we considered several options: various destinations in France and Europe but also something as extreme as the place where we got married, namely Bloomington, Indiana. Since we had just returned from the two-week year-end vacation of train traveling in […]
For our last hike of this vacation we climbed from the village of Ville to the limestone plateau of Gras and walked down to the village of Vogüé. Again, this wasn’t difficult or technical hike, just long, and mostly traveled on a smooth trail. Only the ascent from and the […]
After five nights in Aurillac it was time to move on, to Mende. We had planned to visit a couple of villages on our way: Bozouls and Aubrac (both in the department of Aveyron), but also made quick stops in Estaing and Espalion (also in Aveyron) — in the first […]
During our four days in Aurillac we made only one longer hike on the plateau of Campuac, two shorter hikes in the nearby villages Vic- and Arpajon-sur-Cère, and then made a day trip to two old, idyllic villages Carlat and Mur-de-Barrez farther away. The first hike from Campuac was very […]
For this year’s Summer vacation we spent two week in the southern part of the central massif doing some relaxed hiking, visiting picturesque old villages, and doing just a tiny bit of running. On our way there we spent one night in Orange (Vaucluse), and then two nights in Saint-Ambroix […]
I’ve lost track how many times we have spent our winter vacation in the Serre Chevalier Valley in Hautes-Alpes department, but one thing is sure: the weather has been mostly good. And so it was this time, too. Actually it was extra good, since the sun shone from the clear […]
We spent the extended holiday weekend in the area where most of town and village names sounded like they were taken from Asterix. The area, called la Dombes, is an undulating plateau in the department of Ain consisting of 1200 ponds or rainwater pools that are man-made, most of them […]
As the weather forecast looked very promising for the last weekend of October — with lots of sun and the daytime temperatures in upper teens or lower twenties — we decided to take Monday off and head for a short bike tour on this All Saints’ holiday. We had just […]