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 […]
This past Pentecost holiday weekend we headed to Southern Vercors in Gresse-en-Vercors for an easy hike, to recover from the previous day’s bicycle season opener. We missed the parking lot at Col de l’Allimas (1352m), and then drove all the way to La Bâtie (~1170m), and started walking from there. […]
We are so lucky we live in this department. Even if we are still (until the coming Tuesday) restricted within 100 kilometers from our home, there is a lot to see and do in Isère, so we don’t really need to go any further — actually Lyon, even if in […]
The snow situation near here has been quite poor this winter, so we booked our last week of winter vacation in Les Saisies, Savoie department, which has been much more fortunate with snow. Today our plans received a major blow as following the prime minister’s speech yesterday, the ski resorts […]