Walking in France

WALKING IN FRANCE

The pathways wind through the forests and countryside or alongside little streams, sometimes running between rough stone walls or skirting round a field of crops. Other times they follow forest trails, farm tracks or minor roads. They pass through the ruins of uninhabited villages, negotiate busy market towns and, less enjoyably, co-incide occasionally with the busy roads of major towns. Sometimes they run right through a farm, taking the walker into the centre of a farmyard with yapping dogs and clucking chickens warning of your arrival.

You can walk from the North to the South of France, for example on the GR 5 which commences in Luxembourg and finishes at the Mediterranean or the GR 7 which starts in the Vosges and continues to the Pyrenees. Or travelling from West to East is the GR 10, a challenging route across the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.

There is a national co-coordinating organisation called the Fédération Francaise de la Randonnée Pédestre (FFRP) which is based in Paris and produces a wonderful range of maps and guides. Local groups look after the pathways and the waymarking, known as balisage, in their regions.

The balisage for the GR’s is standardised across the country. Parallel horizontal bars painted in red and white are the reassuring sign that you are correctly following the route. An arrow pointing to the left or right is warning of a change in direction and a cross of red and white bars indicates that a route is not to be followed. Local groups have different styles – sometimes neatly stenciled signage will appear at regular intervals, alternatively the paint may have been slapped-on with drips left running down the tree trunk or wall. We once met a group of well organised painting-walkers marking a route in the forests near Gevrey Chambertin in Burgundy – each person had been allocated a paint pot or brush and they were bounding along taking care not to drip the paint.

As well as the GR routes there are regional or local networks known as GRPs (sentiers de grande randonées de pays) or PRs (sentiers de petite randonnée). These are similarly waymarked but usually with red, yellow, orange or green balisage.

You could spend a lifetime walking the full extent of the GR’s. Or, as an alternative, you could combine daywalking with car-based travel. Or perhaps, if you are staying in a particular area, daywalks can be part of the overall holiday experience.

There is endless potential, just about everywhere, for interesting short walks that take in local sights and countryside. Sometimes these will be in celebrated places of interest, even co-inciding with the GRs themselves. More often they are local initiatives with booklets available in the local tourist information offices or in stationers and bookshops.

Daywalking avoids the need to carry more than a daypack and allows you to come home to a familiar base each night. You will venture into areas and see countryside you would otherwise have missed. And you will pick up the local flavour of a particular community and gain a better understanding and appreciation of rural life.

If cooking for yourself you can shop in the local markets, keenly anticipating market day in your village or seeking out the markets in other towns. And when walking in the countryside you can collect juniper berries and wild thyme to throw into the cooking pot.

The Internet is full of sites offering houses to rent ranging from simple cottages to castles. A uniquely French organisation is Gîtes de France which coordinates the renting of gîtes ruraux. They offer accommodation graded by épis (sheafs of wheat), rather than by stars. Middle range ones, with 3 épis, are comfortable houses in rural villages with fully equipped kitchens. There are a staggering number of gîtes in every département of France.

However you choose to travel or stay, as a walker travelling in France, you will be rewarded by a wonderful range of walking experiences wherever you are.

France is criss-crossed by a network of pathways which have been used for centuries and are co-coordinated as the Sentiers de Grande Randonnée or GR’s. Many follow historic routes, sometimes along the traces of a Roman road, or following an ancient pilgrim way or traditional transhumance route. Other routes have simply been used for hundreds of years by local people going about their daily lives – to and from their farms, traveling to market or making a journey from town to town.

Some of our favorite walks in France...

We have selected for you a selection of some of our favorite walks in France: