Sunday morning and it is randonnée time. Every week from mid-April to the end of June and all during September and October, there are organised walks in the area around here. I must say that “organised walks” kind of put me off from trying them, the very thought of having to walk with a bunch of other people didn’t thrill me to bits, but we tried one anyway and now we are hooked. There are basically two types of walk, the ones that are set out and which you walk at your own speed and those where you walk in a group. The groups walks are not our cup-of-tea. You have to walk at the speed of the slowest and you have to stop every time someone wants to pick flowers! The one time we did a group walk, it took us nearly 4 hours to do about 10 km, I was EXHAUSTED, never again.We like the walks that are laid out and that you just have to follow the arrows chalked on the ground or nailed to fences or trees. You pay a couple of Euros and then off you go. There are one, two or three stops along the way for refreshments, depending on the length of walk you are doing. This is France, so the refreshments are wine, cheese, sausage and a bit of bread - what more do you need?
What we really enjoy about these outings is that we get to see different footpaths and areas that we would not normally venture into. Last Sunday was Flagy and the walk was beautiful. Some of the paths were rather difficult to walk on (large wobbly stones) but most were really nice. The whole course was well thought through, not too steep and yet hard enough work for 30 degrees. We got slightly lost having missed a little blue arrow somewhere, but we weren’t the only ones and we had a map, so we were soon back on course.
The season is now over as the holidays are starting. I can’t wait until September when they start again, but if we want to go for a walk in the meantime, we have a mass of information on the nice walks round here, the only trouble is you have to take you own food and wine!
No comments:
Post a Comment