An easy amble into the heart of the Pyrenees: the Cirque de la Plagne

I've lost count of the number of people who come and stay with us who think that walking (and driving!) in the mountains would be just too scary. To those - and to you, if you're one of them - we recommend this walk. It's short, it's ridiculously easy, it's nobbut a gentle climb ... but as the photos will show, you'll feel as though you're right in the heart of the high Pyrenees. And actually, you are, although you've done very little work to get there.

Here, you're in the Biros valley, these days one of the least-known and least-peopled in the Ariège - though it was once a hive of activity, with iron, lead, silver and zinc mines . You'll start the walk literally at the end of the road, butted up almost against the Spanish border and below the peak of Maubermé, higher than Mont Valier though not so well known. If you were a crow and could fly right over the mountain tops, you'd be in the Aran valley in Spain in just a few minutes (we sometimes drive there for the day: it takes us an hour and a half!).

Drive to the end of the tarmac road then continue on to Bocard d'Eylie, where you'll leave your car. There's nothing here now but a gîte d'étape, the Lez river, and some disused buildings that once housed 30 to 40 women, whose job it was to wash and process the minerals coming down from the mine workings. There were two high altitude mines where nearly 700 miners lived and worked: the highest, at 2750 metres altitude, was nicknamed Macchu Picchu! The mines were exploited for 100 years, between 1850 and 1950, and in this peaceful, remote spot it's almost impossible to imagine what life must have been like here back then.

To start the walk, cross the bridge over the river then follow the piste to the Port d'Urets (marked).

The heart of the Séronais: around the Pouch de Gariné near La Bastide de Sérou

Of all the places where we could have settled in the Ariège, neither of us can think of anywhere that we'd sooner be than in our local pays, the Séronais. For us, it's perfectly situated between the lower plains to the north and the high mountains to the south, with easy access to everywhere ... but more (much more) than that, it's beautiful in its own right. We love the green rolling hills, the scattered farms and hamlets, the woodlands and forests and the wildlife. It's pastoral, peaceful and bucolic.

As far as walking goes, it's perfect French Foothills terrain - in fact it gave birth to the whole French Foothills idea. You could easily come and spend two weeks just walking the Séronais: our local tourist office produces an excellent walking guide with 14 walks, all of which fit the French Foothills criteria.

This easy walk, a tour around the Pouch de Gariné, is one we often do ourselves. It's also a great walk to start off your French Foothills Ariège holiday, perfect for your first afternoon - it'll give you a real sense of place and help you orientate yourself within the area as well as warming up your legs for further delights to come! It's well marked all the way round, so you don't need to keep stopping to check your map. In spring and early summer, the wild flowers are a delight; in summer and early autumn it's the butterflies that will be the stars of the show. Come with us, in pictures .....

This is very typical of the pastoral landscape of the Séronais, near the beginning of the walk:

On the rocks: the Cascade d'Ars, in the Ariège

One fine day in early September, we drove through the Garbet valley - one of the most remote, and sparsely populated, bits of the department - to Aulus les Bains, a miniature spa village specialising, would you believe, in cholesterol. Cholesterol was not, however, the purpose of our visit; we were there to walk up to the Cascade d'Ars, a waterfall in a wild and rocky valley nearby that's reckoned to be one of the most beautiful in the Pyrénées.

It's not a difficult walk; the path winds up through a beech forest, beginning as a wide rocky track and then gradually narrowing and getting steeper until for the last part you effectively find yourself clambering up a staircase of rocks.

The "Chemin des Orris", in Haute Ariège

This post was first written for a previous blog in 2010, soon after we walked the Chemin des Orris near Auzat, in Haute Ariège. I'll let it speak for itself.

The swansong to our holiday week saw us making a very last minute decision to take our Quechua pop-up tent away for a couple of nights, to Vicdessos. It was the first camping trip of the year, as evidenced by the ridiculous amount of time and tantrums it took us to dismantle the infamous tent that takes only 15 seconds to put up; we go through this every year, along with half our fellow campers, before we realise that in spite of Decathlon's pretty pictures on the bag it's just not possible to put both blues to both browns before you do that funny twisting thing (if you have a similar tent you'll know exactly what I'm talking about) and you just have to wing it, or ask for help. Still, it's all good for campsite solidarité. At least it would have been, if we'd had any fellow campers to be solid with. This time, in spite of fantastic weather, we were alone, apart from a few semi-permanent caravanners who spent most of their time cleaning their cars and hosing their awnings (or was it the other way round?).

Vicdessos and its twin village Auzat sit up against both the Spanish and the Andorran borders, and at the foot of Montcalm, 3007 metres high and often known as the 'roof' of Ariège. Although only just over an hour from Maison Grillou the scenery here is very different - the valleys are narrow, edged in by tall, rocky peaks, and habitation tends to be gathered together in hamlets, some of which, like Mounicou, remain very traditional indeed. A lot of the walking here is of the 'sportive' rather than the Slow variety - but not all. We chose to explore Le Chemin des Orris, up above the man made Etang de Soulcem.

An orri is a low, round shepherds' hut found up on the estives - the summer high pastures - built entirely of dry stone (ie no mortar) and often topped with turf, or sometimes with slate. The design hasn't changed since the Middle Ages, when various confreries or guilds (some of which still exist today) were given the right to construct them on land owned by the local count, or king, or whoever; in some places - and we were in one of them - the orris were grouped into small hamlets, often around a communal courtyard. Until early last century, they would be occupied through the summer months not just by the shepherd but also by a part of his family, while the rest of the family remained down in the valleys to look after the crops; they would be used not just for habitation but also for cheesemaking, for the shepherd was also a fromager. Les Orris de Carla, closest to the lake at Soulcem, were in use until 1968.

Le Cap du Carmil: a balcony on the Ariège Pyrénées

This walk is not a famous one. It's part of the GR du Pays de la Barguillère, but it's not in one of Ariège's newly sexy valleys like Bethmale or Bellongue. It's tucked away in the Séronais, in the middle of a deeply unspoilt, forested region with great natural beauty but almost no habitation. So what a lot of people don't know is that with a couple of hours and 400 metres or so of relatively easy climbing, a 360 degree panorama is yours, and as if that weren't enough, you'll get to eat your lunch looking at the entire chain of the Pyrénées from Mont Canigou in the east to the Pic du Midi du Bigorre in the west.

After a gentle beginning during which you weave in and out of mixed woodland, you start climbing through an area full of blueberry bushes where the views gradually start opening out on your right.