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 […]
Even if we are not really high in the mountains, the weather here in the valley can change dramatically in a very short time. However, it is quite rare to have strong thunderstorms in the morning — they usually start on the afternoon or when the evening falls — but […]
It is the time for another post of our hiking holidays in the French Alps. This is mainly just to share pictures, since nothing exciting happened during those hikes; we barely saw another human being during them. The most thrilling events were the goat encounter on the second day, and […]
It has been a long time … and nothing really has happened. After a miserable Spring (weather-wise) the Summer has finally arrived; the daytime temperatures rise almost to +30°C, but mornings are still cool and comfortable. This is nice after so many cloudy weeks and a lot of rain; early […]
Three weeks into the third lockdown, and we have hiked probably in all river valleys on the Western slopes of the Belledonne range that are within about 10 kilometers from us. Yesterday’s hike (8.4km in 2h 43mins, D+/D- 450m) took us from the village of St-Mury-Monteymond to Le Croix De […]
We can’t believe it has been only one week since the third lockdown started. So, here we were again yesterday trying to figure out where to go hiking within the 10-kilometer radius from home. We picked Theys on the other side of the valley a bit further north from us […]
Torrent du Manival is a shallow mountain stream down from the Chartreuse range that can be misleadingly dangerous when dry. During a thunderstorm the water level rises quickly and the stream tears and brings down everything on its way. Major protection works started in the end of 19th century, not […]
Something my friends may not know is that now that we live in the Gresivaudan valley we are quite near to the well known wine growing region of Savoie. Their wines may be a bit more expensive than the average Bordeaux and Côtes du Rhône wines (for instance), but they […]
Our winter vacation plans were messed up with uncertainties involved in the apartment sale project, but once the date for signatures was fixed (see the previous post), we booked one week in our favorite place, Serre Chevalier Valley in Hautes-Alpes for a skiing vacation. But then we started seeing worrisome […]