Randonnée in Flagy

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Blog of La Tuilerie de Chazelle by Sue

Randonnées are an interesting phenomenon in France. As far as I can gather, there are two types of randonnées; one where one can start say between 8 and 12 o’clock, and where one walks more or less alone, and one which starts at a fixed time, say 2 PM, where one walks in a group.
We have tried the second type once. The problem is, that the tempo is set by the slowest walker. This combined with the fact that when French people spot e.g. a lily of the valleys on the side of the path, the whole column stops, and does not move again until every individual has touched, fumbled, tasted and kissed the darn flower. This leads to another interesting empiric proof of Einstein’s law of relativity: this type of randonnée that could only take two hours will take in reality four and a half hours.
It may be clear, that I prefer the “walk alone” randonnées.
We set off at 9h45, and started the walk at approx. 10h15. We had a choice between 10, 20 and 30 km, and we chose the 10 km walk. Although Flagy, a village approx. 15 km from here, lies in the hilly area around Cluny (Clunysois), the paths were not as steep as one normally encounters around here.
The start of the walk was well sign posted (normally with arrows on the ground, sometimes with hardboard arrows nailed to trees or posts).
However, after half an hour all signs disappeared on a cross roads, and then one has to take an executive decision. Needless to say, that the decision we took was the wrong one. Luckily we quickly came in a village which was on our “map” (the piece of A4 we got at the start), and from there we were able to meet up with the proper route without too much of a detour. We met a couple of people in the village who had made the same mistake.
When we joined up with those who had chosen one of the longer walks, there were lots of comments about the poor “ballissage”; there were even people who had missed the drink post underway!
Anyway, the walk was indeed a very nice one. The paths were not too steep, most were through woods hence shaded, and the views whenever one reached the top of a hill were spectacular.
And although there were not many stunning churches on this trail, and only a few lavoirs (washing places), we certainly enjoyed bumping into a beautiful old well, and the beauty of the nature in that part of the woods is certainly stunning as well.
We are looking out to the next “walk alone” randonnée!