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Hiking is the flagship discipline of the moment. Many French people devote themselves to it on weekends or on vacation. Leisure within everyone’s reach, this sporting practice can sometimes even start, quite simply, downstairs from your home.
In the middle of the fields, next to the sheep in the meadow, walkers stroll at the foot of Mont-Saint-Michel (Handle). “It’s magic, especially in the middle of the marshes”, observes Anne, a hiker who has just completed a 250-kilometer journey between Nantes and Mont. Like Anne, 18 million French people put one foot in front of the other over the seasons. Yet not a fan of walking, Anne has only been traveling great distances for a year and the Covid-19. Little by little, she broadens her horizon. “I empty my head completely while walking”, she adds.
The adventure is sometimes lived at the bottom of home, at the gates of Paris for example. At the RER station of Massy-Palaiseau (Essonne), everybody go down. A group of 80 townspeople set off for a 20-kilometer walk. The guide offers a style of hiking in the suburbs in which city and nature are closely linked. Walkers zigzag between parks and the national road. On the way, regular stops make you forget the distance. “It hurts my feet too much, I think I didn’t bring the right shoes, it’s the first time. But I like it a lot, it has to be done again “, smiles a hiker.