La Mount Baudille - hike with OnVaSortir

LE MONT SAINT BAUDILLE
Point culminant du Larzac méridional (848 metres)
Un des plus beaux panoramas du Languedoc Mediterranéen
11km - 545m de dénivelé - 4 heures de marche + pauses

Vous l'avez surement repéré de nombreuses fois lors de randos ou de balades dominicales car le Mont Saint Baudille est dominé par un imposant emetteur régional de télévision (les chaines dites "de montpellier" vous parviennent par cet emetteur). C'est dire le dégagement qu'il propose: pour les ondes mais aussi pour la vue (table d'orientation au sommet).

Tuesday we went hiking again. So far I think that we have hiked more around Montpellier than any other Monteplliarian 

It is a Tuesday (people are working) so we are only 5: Jacques the leader, Christine, Maggie, Mark and I.
This is our leader Jacques, finally took a picture of him:

This hike starts a bit farther than Guilleme Le Dessert. To get there Jacques is driving on this mountain very narrow winding road. There is lot of twisting and turning, lots of blind spots. I am worried that if a car is coming the other way there will be a head on coalition; Jacques is very confident and he is driving rather fast on this road. Fortunately there is very little traffic, only 2 cars are coming from the opposite directions and miraculously it seems that 2 cars somehow managed to fit and pass by each other on this narrow road.

We start hiking up and the views are getting better and better. It is a clear day, soon we see below the entire valley, and as far as Sete, Mediterranean Sea and the Pyrenees.

It is nice to have a small group, there is no one around but us. We can enjoy the views, the mountain and the quietness of the surroundings. Actually we enjoyed the quietness for a very little time because in our group there is Christine. Christine is very talkative and funny. She keeps chatting with Maggie and Jacques. She speaks very fast, we understand very little but I like her talking, her voice, the tone and French accent is like a music to me.

We made it up to the top in no time; on top it is windy again, it is a hot day but the wind is very cold.


We find a sheltered place to have lunch. We eat our lunches and I take out the dessert to share. To my surprise my French friends are ready to go, usually we take a long time for lunch, have coffee, dessert and so on. After a while I understand it is too cold to eat up here, we will have dessert down below where is warm.

We stopped for dessert on the padded green grass with beautiful little colorful wild flowers; then the cookies, cake, coffee are savored. We have a good time telling jokes and laughing of translations and misunderstandings.

Our car was parked by a Fromagerie = cheese farm; if the fromageie is right there how can we leave the place without checking it out. There is none around, we had to ring and a lady owner showed up. She let us sample the cheese and showed us where the cheese is kept and how. We liked the cheese, we all bought little rounds fresh cheese right from the source.

In our way home we decided that one can not have cheese without wine; next stop at the Wine Co-op degustation centre. The host is very welcoming, he seems quit proud of the wines that he is selling; he is trying his best to explain in English about the wineries, the uniqueness of the soil (the limestone from the north but the dryness from the south), and the wines.

We got to test a few wines, I was getting almost tipsy.

Mark and I got 3 bottle of wines, one white and two reds.

We have learned savoir vivre; we need only the French baguette, hmmm actually the baguette as we are in France………..

ps: how we call French onion soup in France? Onion soup 