La meilleure randonée en France?

Hiking or randonée is much more interesting in France than the USA because of how stress free it can be.  A friend told me that there are nearly 90,000 kilometers of state maintained foot paths in France.  Hiking is interesting in that sense because nearly all paths are marked and mapped, it's like being in a statewide park basically.  It's very easy to find a 5 hour long hike and not get completely lost while doing it.  Sometimes French people get the stereotype of not being outdoorsy which is not really true, lots of people go on hikes on the weekend but usually they like to be well equipped when they do aka hiking shoes, walking poles, French picnic supplies, and the zip off hiking pants getup.  But I have a secret I think I might have just done the best hike in France, and not very many people know about it.  

If you've been reading the blog you'll know that I've lived near Avignon before and that I have a thing for the Mt. Ventoux region.  Well this vacation I of course visited my buddies over in Avignon and we were deciding where we should take a hike on my last day there.  We started looking around and yes we found a beautiful hike over in the Mt Ventoux region.  If you know the region a little bit you'll soon find out that there is a town called Rousillon that is known for its ochre, we had a tie do this hike about a hour away from Rousillon that supposedly went through old ochre quarries or go to Rousillon itself and pay to do a hike around the area.  We made an Emily choice- no pretention no charge - sight seeing.  

We got our picnic supplies and headed out with their ever athletic and energetic dog Lady, drove about 30 mins away, ate our lunch by a lake and headed up hill on our hike starting in our hilly if not mountainous choice.  Wow from the very beginning it was a beautiful hike on sandy paths into an old pine and chestnut tree forest then you would dip down into ochre valleys of yellow and white and red beside old quarries then you would climb back up to be in an olive tree grove and vineyard with views of not only Mt. Ventoux but another famous mountain Les dentelles de Montmirail looking at exuberantly happy grape vines planting their roots down in the ever changing sandy ochre soil.  We were for the most part by ourselves enjoying the solitude and each other's company, it was a beautiful day and even though it was a long and somewhat difficult climb the weather was gorgeous and i would say it would be a pity for someone to miss this hike.  I swear one of the spots is the photo background of one of our old computers.  Clean calm and beautiful.  On a passé un moment très agréable entre amis.  Oh and we stopped at a winery on the way home and did a tasting and picked up a few bottles 😉.  














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