Pyrénées trip 1. Gorges de la Carança & Lacs des Bouillouses

My husband and I've been traveling so much that I didn't have time to post for a while!  Finally here I am!  Our last summer destination in France, Pyrénées~!  While most of French people go to the beaches in South France, we chose Pyrénées and Cévennes national park.  We wish we had more time; there are so many hiking trails that we'd love to try but didn't have enough time.  If you ever go to Pyrénées, I highly recommend you to stay La Fontaine at Olette.  The owners, Janet and Hugo, are the expert in that area (speak English and French).  If you have any question, they'd give you the answer!  It's also 15 min driving distance from Villefranch- de-Conflent ( one of the plus beaux villages)  and the Gorges de la Carança.  

너~무 놀러다녀서 그동안 블로그 올릴 시간이 없었읍니다.  미국에 잠깐 다녀오느라 ㅋ 여기 프랑스 사람들은 정말 거의 모두 우르르 다들 바다로 향하는데 우리는 바다는 빌루 인지라 산으로 쓩~ 호텔 레스토랑 값도 싸고 사람들도 빌루 없고 산 아주 강추! 피라네 라고 산인데요 스페인하고 프랑스 국경에 있는 곳입니다.  날씨가 아주 오락가락해서 잘 살펴서 가시길…

Villefranche-de-Conflent; you can have lunch and dinner at this village.. 빌프랑쉬더 콩플랑이라고 예쁜 마을!  여기서 점심 저녁 해결…

Fort Liberia.. We didn't go up there ( well! Montpellier to Pyrénées, there was a huge accident so we lost more than 1 hours so we couldn't do many things that we'd planned to do….:( )

From Olette, It's about 10 min driving distance and so very worth it.  There were lots of family doing hiking together with little kids.  One can choose easy trail or difficult trail.. So beautiful~! 

Gorges de la Carança (GPS: 42° 31' 0.44'' N / 2° 13' 0.38'' E) Take N116 until Thuès-entre-Vals and follow the sign!  There is a parking lot that you can park and start the hiking~

오~ 이 원숭이 다리.. ( 영어로 Monkey bridge  라고 부른다는…) 무서웡..

Cool thing about this place is that there is manmade path all the way through … We walked up with just normal way and down with this trail.. So beautiful!~

Kinda scary too :P

너무 잘만든…

Beautiful view all over!  Highly recommend!  

The next day, we went to the Lacs des Bouillouses ( Lake Bouillouses) We got so lucky to have beautiful weather! I heard that you'd give up the hiking if weather isn't good… Please check the weather at this website before you decide to go there.  You can drive to Pla de Barrès and take the shuttle during summer.  The direction is very well marked.  You won't miss it! 

We just did one trail, Boucle des étangs du Carlit Variante des 12 Lacs ( 5 hours); 12 lakes trail.  It was amazing!  There are so many options.  Next time we'd love to stay at this area for a long time and do all that! 

Lac des Bouillouses!

Boneshores restaurant!  It's the perfect spot to have drink and food after hiking! 

Awesome trail!  I loved it!  너무 괜찮은 등산로… 

방울 단 소들이 즐겁게 살고 있는…

We saw all 12 lakes!  All beautiful and unique!  Don't miss it!

Weather.. ah~ perfect!

There were so many people when we started the hiking because we all just got off from a big bus.  So we decided to walk the opposite direction which turned out better way to see all 12 lakes.

It was super cold!! 

For the last 3 lakes, you'd better bring a jacket! 

Last 3 lake is little further but it's worth it!

너무 예쁘죠!  다음엔 소풍을 이 곳에서…

Super clean water!  There were many people having picnics!

열나 먹은 소들 낮잠 시간

Boneshores restaurant inside

Eat the grilled meat!

We asked fries instead of boiled veggie.  And of course asked for ketchup.  The server gave me one little package and when I asked for more, they gave us 3 more little packages that all different brand! :P So very French experience :P

역쉬 괴기엔 프라이가 짱이죠.. 등산 열나게 한후라서 어찌나 맛있던지… 꼭 가보시길!

The pork sausage was super yummy!

A Perfect Day Trip from Montpellier - Nîmes, Uzès, Sommières and Junas / 완벽한 딱 하루 여행; 님, 유제스, 쏘미에 그리고 쥬나스

During summer, there are so manythings going on in South France. We went to Avignon Festival and it was crazy! ( in an awesome way) There are milions of people on the street with hundreds of street artists and all the possible spaces were filled with posters!  oh! well see this! I took this photos when it's far from the main places :)  But it was fun! In normal, non-festival time, Avignon looks like this :)

We went to 2 concerts and both were great.  Especially I loved the second group.

The second concert, Hidegard Lernt Fliegen! Extremely talented 6 musicians in one group! It was awesome. We bought their CD to listen more later. If they come to your town, don't miss them!

Ok! So my point is that there are so many things going on and I found out that French people love Jazz! Jazz concerts everywhere! Being a Korean person, I am very proud of Yun Sun Nah, a Korean jazz singer who is very talented and currently very popular in France.  I saw a poster during the Music festival in Montpellier ( It was huge! Again! ) and decided to go see her in Junas.  Ok! another thing that you need to know, in south France, things are happening very very late.  The main concert of the day, which was Yun Sun Nah's concert started 10:30 pm! Yup! So since we had a car for a day, I planned to go to all the towns around Montpellier where we've planned to go but never been yet such as Nîmes and the second time we went to Uzès and Sommière ( we've been there but we had a car problem last time so we didn't have a chance to explore the area thoroughly) We've already been to the famous Pont du Gard with our Meetup hiking group and it was fantastic! but we've never been to actual Nîmes.  We passed many times, of course, when we took a train to somewhere east from Montpellier :) When I took a San Francisco history class in CCSF, the prof. said that when Levis used all up the sails from all the abandoned ships in SF bay, he had to import the fabric for his jeans which from Nîmes and that's why nowadays the fabric for the jeans called denim! ( from Nîmes - in French, de Nîmes.. got it?) Anyway, we drove to Nîmes to see the Roman amphitheater.. It's impressive structure but well… it's a old building that looks cool but… whatelse would you do with it except just looked at it and took some photos… I have to say, Nîmes… not too exciting place :)  But enjoy the photos! 

Roman amphitheater, the best preserved Roman arena in France!

I don't know what kind of building this is but it looked cool..

View from the top 

Inside arena

Maison Carée

We spent enough time in Nîmes and drove to Uzès.  Uzès Saturday market is very very famous among local people but I didn't have any chance to go there so if you ever in this area, try to go Uzès on Saturday morning! Uzès is very cute and tasteful town because it's duke's town.  We had a very nice lunch at a restaurant and visited the Duché Palace.  

Duché palace

Lunch at a local restaurant

Cute town…

The tour and entrance fee was 10 euros and I think normally it's much higher.  We got lucky~

View from the tower

In the dongeon, we saw all huge Veuve Cliquot bottles and later found out that One of the Duchesse of Uzes was the heiress to the Veuve Cliquot fortune….. Read about it here

Cathedral, and the Tour Fenestrelle( Window Tower)

After Uzès, we drove to Sommières.  It's even smaller than Uzès so there aren't much things to do normally but when we arrived there, the summer night market was started.. We bought sausages, olives, dices and Belgian beers!

Between Uzès and Sommières, there are many sunflower fields~  Such a happy flower~

Sommières

Cute little center 

Lots of tasteful artisanal shops

We bought the dice sets made out of bull's horn.  He is a Madacascan artist.

Recommended by our friend who lives in Junas, we went to this little restaurant near Sommières,  La Table du Marché.  It was a fantastic dinner!  I highly recommend it!

Foie Gras Crème Brûlée~ So very creative and delicious!  

Extremly great value restaurant also..  Less than 30 euros for 3 course meal… wow just wow..  The restaurant itself has no charm what so ever so when you enter the restaurant, don't judge them :P

Ok! Finally we are in Junas for the concert!  And guess what!!!!  As soon as she started to sing, just one word, the rain started and pouring down on us.  The concert was cancelled at 11:10! (It was scheduled at 10:30pm but she came up to the stage after 11pm and the concert was cancelled at 11:10pm) How sad!!  I really wanted to see and listen her live!  Well! C'est la vie!!! 

Except, of course, the concert being cancelled, everything was great!  If you have a day for traveling around Montpellier and Nîmes but don't want to go to all extremely touristy place, visit this little two towns..