Skip to main content

Languages

Short visit to the Cantal



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.

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.)

Lavigerie, the village under Puy Mary

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.
Our program
  •          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
Saint Flour
Murat

Monday and early morning together makes a hike unforgettable

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?

View during our hike
Lucky 
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.

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.
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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Taking part in local tourism

We always loved hiking. When we lived in Munich (DE), we had the opportunity to visit a new place each weekend, and hike in the Alps. Short after that, we traveled in South America (Patagonia), so when we finally moved in Nantes, it seemed obvious to us that we would keep this habit of constant discovering. Unfortunately, this region is not famous for its mountains! And we cannot always go so far that we reach a gorgeous landscape. So we investigated, and discovered that even non mountainous regions can have a lot to offer and are really worth discover by foot, out of the beaten tracks .   When? After work walks : to clear up your mind At the weather is so-so – weekends (for the reason that if we have a brilliant weather we often go further) When we are lazy to drive far Where? Look for your local hiking tracks. They most often follow rivers, cross fields, go around villages.  What to look for? Look up the local producers: our absolu...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dare to be spontaneous

Armor or Argoat? Coast or inland forests? The answer is both of them! We asked a friend from Brittany to recommend us some nice locations for a weekend trip. Naturally she listed a bunch of sites. Finally we decided to visit the inland forests – Argoat. Huelgoat forest How was that famous proverb? Man plans…and God laughs. The day started brilliantly: sunshine, shorts, sandals, happy picnic. A few hours later dark clouds appeared seemingly from nowhere. The temperature dropped and so our mood, since the original plan was to camp overnight... In this case either you strictly stick to your plan, or as we did, look up the weather forecast in the nearby area in the hope of finding some sunshine not too far. Luckily the coast seemed clear! That’s how we ended up visiting both Argoat, the foresty inland of the Brittany Peninsula and Armor (Armorique, Armorica), the cliffed coast. What did we see in 2 days? 1. The hidden treasure of Le Faouët The Cha...
Post a Comment
Read more

#Trabant2Paris - Second country - Austria

O n our second day we crossed the border between Hungary and Austria. During our trip each border crossings happened on small roads, almost without the realisation that we changed country. Especially that each of these border regions, that we visited were territories, that the countries (Hungary, Austria, Germany and France) lost or won back during the I and II World War. Nowadays these regions seem to own a rich culture, that they inherited from the different countries.  The above mentioned multinational identity is well illustrated just by studying the name of Rust , a town next to the Neusiedlersee .  The settlement was first mentioned as Ceel in 1317. This name was derived from the Hungarian word 'szil' (elm tree) . Later it was translated into German 'Rüster' or 'Rusten' . Presently, in Hungarian we say Ruszt , that obviously originates from the German word.  The town was endowed with the rights of a royal free city by the Hungarian crown ...
Post a Comment
Read more