St Guilhem le Desert--Fenestrettes

Another day, another hike. One of the things onvasortir.com has is a star system. You get a little star by your name. Right now Elena has a silver and I have a bronze. The star indicates how often you do activities. I think Elena is shooting for platinum, and I just want silver. Jacques who leads many of the hikes Elena does has a titanium star--the highest you can get--for doing almost one activity per day.

So on Saturday we went back to St Guilhem le Desert to do a hike we had seen but not done--the fenestrettes. Before the hike, we went into the abbey. I had been in the abbey before, but it was nice to see it again--plus it was cool inside.



It seems that the trail was once used by shepherds to move their sheep from the city to the plateaus where they grazed. So it isn't steep at all. But it is covered with a very coarse rocky gravel. Here are a couple shots of us





We went up and got to the Fenestrettes. I thought they were windows, but no. They are an old buttressed road. Only about 10 meters long. Needed to connect the roads on either side of the mountian so the sheep can get to the plateau. A lot of work back then. I guess mutton and wool must have been valuable commodities.



Most of the hiking was in the open, rather exposed to the sun and it was a hot day. So we went through the water pretty quickly. I gave some to Cressida and had just enough to get back to town. After that we went to Zanzibar in Saint Jean de Fos.