in this last round of pictures from our france visit ( before we moved on to the tiny federal state of saarland ) there are more mountains involved, and due to bad preparation and the worst memory you can imagine, i can't locate a few of them anymore. i'm also seriously wondering what else we managed to do in those last few days, except of wandering around aimlessly. on one of the last days we visited an agricultural fair as well, but as i had to realize i haven't even documented that properly ( except i did, but not with the camera, more with this tiny gagdet called smartphone ;P ). on another day we met up with our renters in the afternoon to eat delicious blueberry pies and visit a cascade and another mountain - la planche des belles filles, plank of beautiful women.
we started with foggy weather on our last day. our goal was ballon de servance, but on our way there we stopped a few times to check out some different mountains - we did a lot of ballon hopping that day, haha.
i totally forgot the name of the first mountain we stopped, and even after trying to do a little bit of research on it, i still couldn't find any details. what i learned out of that for the future is to write down the name of things i visit. it had a ski station, but research didn't enlighten me with the solution to which of the many stations of the vosges mountains we actually were dealing with.
entangled trees, growing into each other.
i found huge ceps on some grassland nearby.
the beauty of mountain landscapes: stunted trees and colourful ground cover plants.
rowan berry tree.
ski lifts. i think they're pretty interesting constructions.
view onto the ski slopes. i bet it's beautiful when all is covered with snow.
our next stop was the ballon de servance, it is actually used by the french military, so you couldn't enter some parts of the mountain. this cute pathway was part of a hiking route and it lead us to a different area of the summit.
taking the hurdle up to the summit.
the ballon de servance is 1216 meters in height & overlooks the mountains in the northern region of the vosges mountains. its neighbors are the ballon d'alsace, planche des belles filles & the col du stalon.
dramatic skies are exactly my cup of tea.
wandering around the summit.
there were some suspicious dents in the ground, i suppose they are either remnants of bombing impacts or just natural draw-downs.
french mountain forests often feel like a primordial jungle. in germany the woods are more orderly and maintained ( which i am not that very fond of ).
roots emerging.
back on the way to the car. i love tree roots.
military sign on the tarred road up to the summit.
as we drove back to le val-d'ajol to meet up with our french friends we passed by this giant wooden bear ( who held a tiny woman in his arms ), i guess it's the vosges alternative to godzilla ;)
it was created by wood sculptor jaques pissenem.
next to the giant bear there was a nice graffiti.
we met up with our friends in the afternoon and visited the saut de l'ognon - a little waterfall of the river ognon. even though they say it's a lot more powerful in winter, we only got to see it with less water force. it was still a beautiful place.
our last stop was at the planches des belles filles, another mountain used for skiing. it's also often part of the tour de france. after a short ( and very cold ) walk, we went to a restaurant and ate one of the juiciest blueberry pies i ever tasted and it tinted our tongues in the darkest violet colour you can imagine :D it was the perfect ending to our adventures in the vosges mountains. on the next day we had to say goodbye and leave, but it was not the end of our vacation. saarland awaited us!
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