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A French-speaking American discovers the soul of France on foot through an extensive network of long-distance walking trails crisscrossing the country.
It is possible to walk from any village in France to another without ever boarding a car, train, or bus. This is a guide to the more than 110,000 miles of well-marked and maintained off-road footpaths and to the gracious accommodations, wonderful restaurants, and sights along the way. Vineyards, caves, chateaux, and other beauties of the countryside are highlighted in colour photos. The book provides explanations of trail markers, equipment advice, packing tips, and a pocket-sized English-French walker's vocabulary.
Ditch the tourist trail, hit the hiking trail and experience the REAL France! Ever felt the urge to shoulder a backpack and explore fairytale villages? Do your travel daydreams involve eating picnic lunches beside lavender fields? And feasting on freshly prepared classic French dinners? Have you dreamed of hiking in France among vineyards and stone villages, enjoying the leisurely pace of rural life at the languid pace of foot travel? You’ve come to the right place. Anyone can walk France’s long-distance hiking trails. - Hiking takes all types. Hiking France covers the intricacies of walking from village to village, along lavender fields, farm pastures, riverside towpaths and mellow forest trails. Anyone in decent shape can hike France’s best trails. - You don’t need to know French. Some French phrases help, but with modern translation apps and an adventurous spirit, English speakers get on fine in rural France. - You don’t need a trust fund. Hiking rural France is one of Western Europe’s great bargains, and the most-affordable way to explore the French countryside. - You needn’t have planned an overseas hiking trip before. Hiking France will arm you with all the tools, resources and inspiration to set you on the path of planning your dream hiking trip in France. In Hiking France, you’ll learn: - How to find villages linked by well-signed footpaths. - Where to buy and how to decipher French maps and hiking guides. - Which websites, books and apps to use. - How to book lodging and transportation. - What to pack and wear. - Eating tips and tricks for dining like a local (and a hiker!). After reading Hiking France, you’ll have the knowledge and wherewithal to go out and plan your self-sustained hiking trip to France. You won’t need expensive tour companies or private guides. Just this book, maps or GPS, and a sense of adventure. There’s never been a better time to ditch Europe’s tourist crowds and strike out on a village hiking vacation in France, Europe’s ultimate hiking playground.
Suggests hikes in five French and one Italian national parks, and offers tips on trip planning, map sources, and safe hiking.
Lonely Planet’s France is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Grab a café crème at a Parisian sidewalk cafe, take in glacial panoramas above Chamonix and explore the Champagne-soaked city of Reims – all with your trusted travel companion.
Traces the tumultuous life of Mary Stuart, who became queen at the age of one week and was eventually beheaded for plotting against her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I
The mountainous district of France to which, somewhat loosely, Stevenson applies the name Cevennes, lies along the western confines of Provence, and overlaps on several departments, chief of which are Ardèche, Lozère, Gard, and Herault. In many parts the villages and the people have far less in common with France and the French than Normandy and the Normans have with provincial England. Here in these mountain fastnesses and sheltered valleys the course of life has flowed along almost changeless for centuries, and here, too, we shall find much that is best in the romantic history and natural grandeur of France. Remote from Paris, and happily without the area of the "cheap trip" organisers, it is likely to remain for ever "off the beaten track." In order to visit the Cevennes proper, the beautiful town of Mende would be the best starting-place. But since my purpose was to strike the trail of R. L. S., after some wanderings awheel northward of Clermont Ferrand, I approached the district from Le Puy, a town which so excellent a judge as Mr. Joseph Pennell has voted the most picturesque in Europe. Besides, Stevenson himself had often wandered through its quaint, unusual streets, while preparing for his memorable journey with immortal Modestine. "I decided on a sleeping sack," he says; "and after repeated visits to Le Puy, and a deal of high living for myself and my advisers, a sleeping sack was designed, constructed, and triumphantly brought home." At that time the wanderer's "home" was in the mountain town of Le Monastier, some fifteen miles south-east of Le Puy, and there in the autumn of 1877 he spent "about a month of fine days," variously occupied in completing his New Arabian Nights and Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh, and conducting, with no little personal and general entertainment, the preliminaries of his projected journey through the Cevennes.
