News from Mountain and Maps
News, views and life in France.
Winter road cycling in Languedoc sunshine
Winter road cycling in the Languedoc is popular and very pleasant. Helped enormously by the lovely weather; blue skies, little wind and sunshine. It is chilly but it doesn’t take long to warm up on the bike. Very little traffic too, as the tourist season hasn’t kicked in. We’ve been out a lot since…
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Triathlon’s - they are So Over ...
Now back in France after a trip to Australia - fortunately missing the current spate of awful weather and floods. We had fantastic weather and a great time catching up with family and friends living there. We were also lucky, whilst driving along the Great Ocean Road, to come across an adventure race…
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Pyrenees on the BBC website
The BBC website has an article on the Pyrénées this week . Check it out on http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20100921-southwest-frances-best-for-mountains-the-pyrenees. Unfortunately, the article writer doesn’t know how great the area is for snowshoeing. We have several snowshoeing trips, based…
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Autumn Heaven
Perfect weather in southwest France for getting out on the bikes. We’ve been going off-road on the mountain-bikes into the hills of the Haut Languedoc Natural Park. There are spectacular views of the vineyards in a fantastic array of autumn colours. We’re still having temperatures around…
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What’s not to like about this climate?
Here we are in October cycling beside the Mediterranean in 25C. This would be a hot summer’s day in the UK, but here the beach is deserted and people are already wrapped up in winter clothes! En route to the coast stopped at the Narbonne food market, which we think is the best permanent food market…
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The awesome Pyrénées
Just back from a long weekend to the Pyrénées, with visitors from New Zealand. They are, of course, used to spectacular mountain scenery, but even so, they were impressed with the awesome Pyrénées and surprised by the lushness of the forest below the snowline. We did a day’s walk in the Spanish…
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Haut Languedoc Natural Park
A morning bike ride along a disused railway track in the Haut Languedoc Natural Park. Starting from Mons la Trevalle; it’s an easy riding track through Olargues (a beautiful medieval town with the claim of being one of France’s prettiest villages – though am not sure who/how that is measured).…
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The best gelato in the world
Back from taking a week’s walking trip in Chianti, Italy. It was based at a lovely agro-tourisimo, on a vineyard and very close to Greve. Fortunately for the guests, it was also the annual wine tasting weekend in Greve which provided a great start to a week of walking, wine-tasting and sightseeing.…
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