Walks in Tarn and Garonne

There are several walking groups based around St Antonin, Septfonds and Caylus and many readers venture out each week on walks of various degrees of difficulty. Some leaders are experts in the patrimoine of their routes, others just out to enjoy the countryside.
The Tarn and Garonne tourist office has put over 70 routes on their web site, which can be downloaded.
www.tourisme-tarnetgaronne.fr

Know your wild flowers

Most local authorities no longer use herbicides or pesticides on open spaces (except cemeteries, sports grounds or some roads). The result is that many areas have been invaded by weeds and wild flowers.
The CPIE ( Centre Permanente d'Initiatives pour l'environnement) proposes a walk to discover and identify the plants. Sunday 12th May, from the lake at Caylus. From 14h.
Free, but by reservation at  CPIE Quercy Garonne 05 63 24 06 26 ou mdp82@wanadoo.fr

Walking in the Pyrenees

If you are a randonneur passionné you may already be aware of a web site called www.Topopyrenees.com  created in the last  few years by a walker known only as Mariano. Working in Pau, Mariano fell in love with the mountains, but an almost catastrophic accident, leaving him stranded for over 3 hours, made him decide to create a site to enable walkers to plan their trips.
The site, a kind of on-line Wainwright, with routes, maps and photographs, has become so popular that it receives up to 150000 visits per month in the summer season. With 540 detailed routes, and about 65 new additions each year the site is almost a full time job now for Mariano, sometimes taking 30 hours per week to up-date.