The Vercors Massif is a large, difficult-to-access plateau lying at about 1000m/3100ft above sea level just to the north of Die. It’s an attractive place looking almost alpine and caters both for walkers and skiers. We visited the Vercors once,…

[Well, you can’t seriously expect me to resist a name like that, can you?] We’d had some of the wet stuff overnight but the morning was dry though still cloudy; clearly not a day to go up to the high…

Carol had located a camp site that sounded much more like us on the approach to Die (which, I imagine, is pronounced “Dee” in French); it was a relatively new aire naturelle (4-5 years old) that would “have some shade…

Having oggled some of the strange constructions atop volcanic outcrops in Le Puy, today we were setting off to move 65 miles or so south to Aubenas. While I was packing, Carol set off à bicyclette to get breakfast and…

Le Puy, to give it its familiar shortened name, lies smack bang in the middle of the Massif Central. a huge formerly volcanic mass of uplands in the middle of France. All three roads leading to Le Puy cross passes…

We appear to have lucked out; having arrived on Friday afternoon at Le Puy-en-Velay, we discovered that Saturday is market day. We set off this morning on foot for our first investigation. Our walk was a little further than we…

Time to pack up and head off to pastures new. We had decided to head for Le Puy-en-Velay in the Massif Central. When we are touring in France we use combination of Michelin maps, one of which is a large…

The sun was back today, more so than we’d expected from the forecast, so we set out to ride one of this region’s excellent cycle routes that was new to us. We’d head across La Loire and into Blois. Since…

If there’s one slight drawback to this excellent camp site in Huisseau-sur-Cosson, it’s that charcoal barbecues are not allowed. That’s a common restriction in the south of France where there is a significant fire risk but it’s unusual this far…