The Tour de France starts in two days, so I promise there will be a return to ‘le velo’ very soon. In the meantime, we have been taking advantage of our new wheels and getting out of the city to do a bit of hiking.

We made a return to St. Guilhem le Desert (see last October’s post for some background) last week. The trip by motorcycle took less than an hour, riding the same route that took us half a day on our bicycles last year!

Before the hike we dipped into the Romanesque abbey church.

Filled up on pain au chocolat’s, we headed up the river valley and followed a part of the Camino de Santiago trail to the end of this stunning ‘cirque’.

We walked up and over these cliffs, then around the back of the right one, making a tidy little 4-hour hike. This is the back of me, looking over the low mountains around St. Guilhem.

Here’s the ‘cirque’ near the end of hike.

And finally the village of St. Guilhem le Desert at the end of our walk. Near the center of the picture you can see the old wall and gate to the village. In the upper left hand corner is what remains of the fort people presumably ran up to in times of trouble. Well, we had no trouble on this day, unless you call trouble a bit of a sunburnt neck.