You might
know the Volvic mineral water, right? Did you know where does it come from?
From the
Massif Central (FR), its source is Clairvic Spring in the Auvergne Regional
Park.
So if you
can imagine this bottle of water- most importantly, the logo of the brand –
imagine it in a bigger version and you’ve arrived! The landscape is green,
incredibly green. However, there’s not many trees, just the grassy plateaus.
We spent a
weekend in Cantal, that lies in the middle of France's central plateau. More
precisely, we stayed next to Puy Mary, an extinct volcano, about 6,5 million
years old.
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| The snow covered Puy Mary |
Our plans meet the reality
As we spent
the 1st of May Bank Holiday there, we prepared with hiking boots and lots of
motivation to climb the mountains. Unfortunately this winter was longer than
usually, and the weekend brought terrible weather circumstances.
Positive experience
- Luckily we found a nice, old gîte for our stay, in Lavigerie.
- Gîte >a furnished holiday house in France, typically in a rural district<
- It was located in the middle of nowhere, as we like non-touristy places. There were more dogs in the village, than inhabitants.
- Culture schock in France. The village seemed to be back in time, with its architectural style, running chickens all over and free dogs on the streets.
- And finally plenty of artisan products (chicken, eggs, ham, cheese, beer, honey, just to list a few of them.)
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| Lavigerie, the village under Puy Mary |
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| 5 mins walk from Lavigerie |
The bitter pill
- The village was authentic, and still as tourists we had to pay overprice by the local artisans.
- No one to blame, but it was rainy, stormy, even snowy. The roads that led to the national hikes were closed.
- Discovering the landscape and the artisan products, local gastronomy. We found some extremely delicious ham, cheese (Cantal, Saint-Nectaire, Salers, and the Bleu) and honey.
- Pleasant visits to two historical cities: Saint Flour and Murat
- Early morning Monday hike
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| Saint Flour |
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| Murat |
According to
the weather forecast these were the few dry hours of the sassy weather. As we
didn’t want to risk too much, we selected an easy hike, around the Col de Serre.
The
landscape was stunning: grassy plateaus and fresh springs, rocks in the most
surprisingly shape at the strangest locations. It gave a ’The Lord of the Rings’
feeling.
The peak was
slightly snowy, here the temperature suddenly dropped. It was surprising to realise that, even though it was in Spring, there were more snow after our stay, than when we arrived!
Strange fact
During our morning hike, we heard a lound buzing noise above us. We were puzzled and looked all around, only to find a drone. It was loudly flying all around the mountain range, and stopping from time to time. Any ideas why?
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| View during our hike |
As the morning was quiet, we saw
a herd of deer crossing the snow covered mountains. So satisfying and magical to know that up to this day, in the middle of France, you can still find wild animals!
Travel with dog 🐶
In the village: all the dogs of the village
are free to leave their gardens. These are friendly shepherd dogs. If yours is well socialized, there shouldn’t be any problems.
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| One of the neighbour dogs said Hello to us |
Hikes: the
hikes we did were easy and intermediate level. Achievable even for a (fit)
bichon. As the weather was more wintery than expected, we found him to be a bit cold when we reached the first snowy parts.
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| Cold-dog |
Historical sites: Not possible in castels or museums, but OK in restaurants.
Note
We couldn’t
discover as much as we wanted to. The region is full of hidden gems, beautiful
landscapes, and heritages, it is definetely worth to visit and even more to return!
See the map below, for the route of our two short hikes. We would have gladly walked until the top of Puy Mary, due to the snow we had to turn back between Col de Serre and Pas de Peyrol.
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