France
GR routes, high Alps and the high ridges of the Pyrenees.
France has the densest walking network in Europe: since 1947 volunteers of the hiking federation have painted white-and-red stripes over more than 200,000 kilometres of trail, from the Vosges to the Pyrenees. The country stacks landscapes: the granite plateaus of the Massif Central, the limestone ribs of the Jura, the glaciers of the Alps and the high uplands of the Cévennes, where rivers like the Tarn and the Ardèche have cut deep into the limestone. Along the Mediterranean the walking is dry and scented; in the Pyrenees the land falls away on either side of the watershed towards two seas. Many of those routes follow old tracks: shepherd ways, pilgrimage paths, the customs routes along the coast. The Tour du Mont Blanc is the best-known example: just over 170 kilometres around the Mont Blanc massif through France, Italy and Switzerland, over passes between glaciers, huts and small mountain villages. The Grande Randonnée network reaches further: the GR20 on Corsica is considered the hardest in France, and the GR10 crosses the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. Mountain seasons run from June to September; outside that window, high country is winter terrain.
Trips in France
8 days
Hard120 km6844 m
Vercors · FranceTour du Vercors
Eight days along the eastern balconies, the Hauts-Plateaux reserve and the southern valleys of the Vercors, from Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte to Die.
11 days
Hard163 km9798 m
Mont Blanc massif · Switzerland, France, ItalyTour du Mont Blanc
The classic walk around Mont Blanc: 164 kilometres, three countries, eleven stages from 10 to 21 kilometres, and every day a balcony view of the highest mountain in the Alps.
15 days
Hard175 km8999 m
Corsica · FranceGR20
The legendary and famously hard long-distance trail across Corsica: fifteen refuge-to-refuge stages from Calenzana to Conca, over granite, through high cirques and along the aiguilles de Bavella.