Road trip to Serres, Sigottier, Orpierre

We drove down the N75 to Sigottier, which we spent a whole five minutes enjoying, and then to Serres. Serres is kind of a dump, and we went to an awful cafe

after eating our picnic lunch. Both towns were easily and happily forgotten as soon as we left the city limits. During the drive down, Zoe greedily hoarded the bag of Cape Gooseberries that Chloe had packed for us. When we asked for one, she would give us a big toothy smile, say "noooo", while moving the bag away from us, and stuff her mouth full of them.

The third town was one that I had been hearing about for years: Orpierre. Most climbers will know the name, and to my great embarrassment, I have never actually climbed there, despite owning the climbing guide. I thought this would be a good chance to scope out the city and crag, and am very happy that we did! The first order of business was to let Zoe at the small playground near the church. They have a climbing wall which she showed no interest in climbing, but lots of enthusiasm for jamming little pebbles into:

She also made mom and chloe get into a little house with her:

and made us watch her go down the slide


The town is surrounded by beautiful cliffs


And has some wonderful narrow cobbled streets. Some pictures:






This is what happens when you take a tissue out of the hands of a 2 year old:

Bad daddy!
But I was forgiven soon enough

We took a few ill advised turns on the way back which ended up bringing us over snowy cols and narrow, fender scraping alleys, but we eventually made it home for an american version of Raclette: