Mountain life in the French Alps. We have a B&B in Oz en Oisans near the famous ski resort and road cycling destination of Alpe d'Huez. We offer winter ski holidays from December to April. In the summer, Late May to the end of September we offer accommodation for road cyclists, mountain bikers and anyone who wants to explore the mountains. Guests come to walk, drive the roads and even some of the remote gravel roads of the region.
We loved this video. We said we would never go south after arriving in Bourgogne in 2004. This summer, we did just that. Auxonne to Castelnaudary. A great trip and this brings back some great memories. Thank you
Well, I have watched this vid probably 5 or 6 times now and every time i watch it I spot something I had missed earlier. You certainly will never have any rodents on your boat or at home with Bobet and his mate around !!!!. Thanks again for the great vid. Max. Australia.
Hello from Canada and thank you for creating and posting this video of your trip from Argens to Lattes. it is the best personally made video that I have seen on RU-vid for a trip like this. By coincidence, my wife and I and another couple are planning the very same trip this coming September. Your video has helped us a lot in planning our trip.
Be prepared for the filthy conditions on this canal. I cruised in Sept 22 and the combination of lazy lock operators and raw sewage in the canal will make you sick. Some stops are nice (Carcassone), but most are just typical French obnoxious.
Interesting...we didn't find any of that on our trip but we do speak French and understand the culture. However, the water quality is as you describe; I suspect it always has been like that.
I have cruised my own boat in France,Belgium,Netherlands and Germany. I have found that the French professional waterways officials off hand and sometimes rude. Not so in the other countries. The Brittany waterways are polite and considerate, students in my experience. Our boat is Irish Flagged, not British.
We hired a Locaboat 1107 out of the same boatyard at Argens back in 1994 for 4 weeks. Cruised as far as you could go west (almost to Bordeaux), then turned around and went east to the Etang. Too windy to cross, boats were blowing up on the rocks. Sad to see all the small new tree plantings which I assume are replacements for all the old trees they had to take down due to disease a while back. I lost a boat shoe in a lock, so I sank the other one in the canal at the entrance to the Argens marina; I guess it is still there. Very nice video. Loved the way you incorporated Google Earth.
Wonderful video! We did a week on the canals in Holland aboard the same style Locaboat earlier this spring and Loved it. The Canal du Midi will be our next trip. About how many locks did you encounter on this route?
Nice video, we did the same trip last month but the other way around but sadly due to the weather forecast we had to skip Aigues-Mortes to get across the Etang de Thau, I haven’t edited our video yet :-). It is really interesting watching it the other way round too and of course you stopped off at some different places to us.
Thanks for video. I have watched many canal du midi videos and yours is the best. I would like to travel the canal but I am 76 and worried about jumping on and off boat.
Thanks for liking our video. The barges move very slowly and you can certainly arrange to come alongside solid quaysides. There is no tide, no current and mostly no wind. Its not at all like normal boating or yachting in that respect. You could, of course, suggest that a younger couple/friends/family join you for a barge holiday. That way you don't have to do the physical work, just sit back and watch the world go by (no experience necessary!).
Great video guys ...... Well done to both of you, not easy trying to steer a boat and record a vid at the same time. It looks like you got held up for quite a while behind the Hotel boat " ATHOS ". One thing to note the path beside the canal is a TOWPATH not a footpath. If you keep turning out vids of this quality you will be doing a great job. Cheers. Max. Australia.
Yes, I wondered about using "towpath" rather than "footpath" but I think that these days they have been re-purposed as walking and bicycling routes rather than for horses/mules/donkeys/men etc.
The old tug at around 35 minutes comes from aero in Denmark. The owner, Michael was on the port side. They stopped 21/22 winter in Colombiers where I keep 16 meter cruiser. Tonight 31/08/22 I'm in frontignan ready to head back to Colombiers next morning and Foncerannes miserable lock keepers/summer staff.
It was in April, right after a fall of snow. The Bureau des Guides in La Grave is the place to find a guide. the La Grave/La Meije website is easy to find.
Most of the footage is taken by Tom, for who this is his first visit to La Grave and having only just learnt to ski in fresh snow. I think it was very wise of him to follow the guide. At the end of the day he thought he had had the best days skiing in his life. Not such a waste, then.
After a busy winter season this seemed the best way of relaxing. It was very quiet at the beginning of the Spring and the weather was lovely. We especially chose a one-way trip as we wanted to see as much as possible and experience the Etang de Thau. We just pulled over each evening and drove a couple of stakes in the bank and tied up. We ate out sometimes but also ate on the boat, especially at lunchtimes.
great footage - now I am certain that i will go as soon as it opens 👍 How would you grade difficulty on this run? Is this rather normal/easy variant? Thanks
La Grave has no "runs" as you would find in a normal ski resort. The mountain is completely open for you to decide how to get down it. There are some VERY hard ways to get down, usually skied/videoed by the professionals, but it's just as possible to descend the entire mountain without ever skiing anything steeper than a "red" run. That said, the terrain is completely natural so it's the conditions that make the biggest difference. I have skied some of the best snow and some of the worst in La Grave but it's always been fun. The last, lower part of this day out was very warm and the snow was very heavy and difficult to ski. We usually run guided days out to La Grave when we have guests to stay. It's worth a visit if you can ski variable types of snow under control; you don't have to an expert.
@@lechateaudoz8705 thanks for responding - I get that part about no 'runs'. I was just curious about which part of the slope is the one shown in the video
@@szymu1910 This video is a compilation of the 5 runs we made in the day. The open part is the glacier, on which there are many ways to get down. The parts in the trees are in both the Vallons de la Meije and the Vallons de Chancel. This was made in the spring and, though there was plenty of snow, it warmed up a lot during the day. This made the snow lower down VERY heavy late in the day. If you want more information you could try this: www.lagrave-lameije.com/en/hiver/accueil . Information is hard to find because there isn't much to say about the area. You take the lift up, you ski down any way you want.
