Hiking Périgord: Carlucet

We spent a week in Carlucet during our first trip to France together. We thought it would be fun to go see how it looks fifteen years later, so today we started our hike there. Some things seemed just the same – we recognized the B&B (now a gîte, or whole house rental) right away. […]

Hiking Périgord: Vitrac

We started Monday’s hike in the hamlet of Le Colombier between La Roque-Gageac and Vitrac. This handsome fellow was one of the first things we saw: He was either posing or studiously ignoring us… We were once again mainly walking through the woods. At the highest point of the hike we came out to a […]

Hiking Périgord: Vézac

Fueled by our Thanksgiving leftovers, we headed out from La Roque-Gageac this afternoon on a hike that looped to the north and west of the village. It was amazingly warm – we never expected to be dressed like this on November 29th: After a short walk on a road, we headed up into the trees. […]

Hiking Périgord: Beynac-et-Cazenac

On Sunday we visited the castle (château) at Beynac, which will be a separate post, and then headed out on a hike to the north and east of the town and castle. As an aside, what is up with the village names here in the Dordogne? At least half of them seem to be multiple […]

Hiking Périgord: St Julien

Whew! Yesterday evening, we were happy to be in our apartment, warm and fed, rather than just getting back, long after dark. Our three-hour hike came far too close to being a six-hour slog. More on that later… Our hike began on the GR (Grande Randonnée) 64 – our first steps on this hiking path, […]

Hiking Périgord: La Roque-Gageac

The weather finally cleared enough on Friday for us to take a long hike (well, long for us – three hours). We’d managed to sneak in a shorter walk between the rain showers on Thursday, where we got to see some localized flooding along the Dordogne: On Friday, though, we were excited to see some […]

The GR 34

What’s the best sign in Brittany? This one: Why? Because it means you’re on the Grande Randonnée (GR) 34, the hiking trail that goes all the way around the coast of Brittany. It’s 1800 kilometers long. We’ve only hiked a fraction of those kilometers, but we’ve enjoyed them all. There’s something for everyone: stark natural […]

Hiking Crozon: Île des Capucins

Tuesday’s hike provided a vivid contrast: boredom and thrills! Our Sunday washout left us hanging just shy of the Île des Capucins so we headed back toward Roscanvel to pick up the hike where we had left off in the rain. At first it seemed we weren’t going to reach the island today either. This […]

Hiking Crozon: L’Aber

What a difference a day makes. Our Sunday hike was … rather damp. Monday’s hike was damp too, but only with sweat as the skies were blue and the sun was brilliant. We started at the Pointe du Guern, the end point of a previous hike. From there we headed west toward the River Aber. […]

Hiking Crozon: Near Roscanvel

The maps have been rather confusing. The France Outdoors app says the GR34 doesn’t go out on the Roscanvel Peninsula. But other maps show it does. When we visited the Pointe des Espagnols (see our earlier post), we saw GR34 signs so we decided to head out to the coast west of Roscanvel for a […]