ghost of nature.

ascending the chemin des roches ( the path of rocks ). the path of rocks snakes up right behind our home in le val-d'ajol, and it is quite a steep one. it goes up about 200 meters in altitude for a very short length of about 1km or so - rising from about 400 meters to 650. but when you are up on the top, the hike is pretty easy-going and rewards you with idyllic landscapes and super old crumbling structures. we made this hike on a very rainy day, we just didn't want to sit inside all day and let cabin fever get to us, so we went and took umbrellas with us and then set out to explore our HUGE 'backyard'. our path lead us past the 'haut des champs' woods, along the 'route de rapaumont', which leads you to the little hamlet of rapaumont. from there we made our way through 'le grand talhoux', another small forest until we ended up in 'la rochotte' ( le val-d'ajol has many hamlets 😉 ). la rochotte is in the valley of the méreil...

so typically french - a street in the old city of vesoul.  in the département of haute-saône lies a small city called vesoul , which we visited because it's not too far away from le val-d'ajol ( about 45 minutes by car ). since we have seen quite a lot of the surrounding landscapes of le val-d'ajol and inside the département of épinal ( in which le val-d'ajol is situated in ), we decided to check out a different département and venture out of the southern vosges mountains. fortunately the region of bourgogne-franche-comté is not too far away, which opens up a whole lot of possibilities to explore. the haute-saône departement is not entirely separated from the vosges mountains, though, rather it is a soft transition from the southern tails of the mountains down into the valleys of the haute-saône, which always confuses me a little, as the change from one department to the other is not really apparent. like, shouldn't the vosges département be comprised of on...