Not this time. And not the vacation I was looking forward to! The plan was to do some scenic hikes in lovely, sunny December weather. None of that happened. The weather was dreary and grey — we only had sun on one day of our six-day trip — luckily it did not rain much, though. And I was sick the whole time. On the weekend prior to our vacation we attended two social events, and already on the first day of the trip I felt a bit under the weather, but was still hopeful it will go away with a good night’s sleep. It didn’t, only got worse.
For quite some time I have wanted to visit the town of Die (Drôme) in the Drôme river valley and Diois, the region around it, for scenic hikes in Southern Vercors massif. Die is also a charming town within Gallo-Roman walls built between the 285 and 305. Maybe this wasn’t the right time to visit; we’ll be back in the Spring or Summer.
I didn’t expect there to be snow in Die, but was a bit surprised about the wintry conditions we encountered when approaching Col de Menée (1402m) when crossing the Vercors mountains. It is not uncommon here to be driving in dry, fall-like conditions, and then suddenly after a turn in the road to find oneself in the middle of the winter in blizzard with snow banks on both sides of the road.
As usual we spent the first day exploring the town, still hoping to go hiking rest of the days. We followed the walking route we got from the tourism office — yes, quite surprisingly the office was open on the off-season Monday!
I did not feel any better the next day, so we resorted to walking around the old town walls (Remparts de Die). Not obvious from the pictures, but this walk involved some serious climbing and descending on very steep trails or roads.
The next day was the only beautiful day during our vacation. For a long time I have wanted to do the hike to Cirque d’Archiane near the village of Châtillon-en-Diois. Since I still didn’t feel anywhere near 100%, we decided just to visit the village, one of the most beautiful villages of France, and do a short hike to the Giono Forest and the Adoux Waterfall. About 10,000 schoolkids planted 3000 trees for the The Giono Project that was inspired by the French author Jean Giono’s book “The Man Who Planted Trees.” It tells about a shepherd, Elzéard Bouffier, who’s life-long and successful dream was to re-forest a desolate valley in the foothills of the Alps.
What a nice day this was, since against all forecasts the next and final day was bleak again.
And it also rained. We just walked to the Purgnon hill on top of which there used to be a fortified castle dating from the 12th century. All that remains of the castle is a circular tower and a portion of the wall. In the 19th century the tower was transformed into a chapel.
That’s it. A second vacation this year that I’ve been sick all the time. In a week we’ll leave for a year-end skiing vacation in Hautes-Alpes. Fingers crossed that neither of us will be sick then!
One final note: we stayed at an Airbnb apartment next to the Cathedral Notre Dame, and unlike many other churches or cathedrals, its bells rang all through the night at full and half hours.