Our red wire is blue wire.
In the thirteenth issue of our special edition collection “Heritage & walks”, on newsstands this Wednesday, our journalists are playing hide and seek with the Seine.
After the GR1 last year, we followed the GR2 route, a long-distance hiking trail that crosses Île-de-France from side to side, following more or less the meanders of the great river.
The Seine, which we see dancing along these walks, takes us on its little merry-go-round.
We go up, we go down, we turn left, right, we move away a little, we finally get closer.
We head north without losing it, the river is our compass, our landmark, our Ariadne's thread that makes us play tightrope walkers in Greater Paris.
A walk in sixteen stages
Magnificently illustrated by our photographers, the special edition, baptized “Randos on the banks of the Seine”, offers sixteen ideas for day trips
(the departure and arrival points are connected to stations)
.
It was produced in partnership with the French Hiking Federation.
The walk, divided into sixteen stages, starts in Montereau-Fault-Yonne, on the border between Seine-et-Marne and Yonne and ends in Follainville, in Yvelines, a stone's throw from Giverny.
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Between the two, kilometers and kilometers of a soothing walk, lulled by the rolling of the water, punctuated by the changing landscapes.
Île-de-France and its thousand faces parade before our eyes.
We first come across the aptly named Affolantes, houses of rare elegance, holiday residences characteristic of 19th century architecture.
Then we resume our journey, there is a long way to go.
We swing in Samois, stronghold of Django Reinhardt.
We stop at Melun.
Rougeau forest.
And the green which, insidiously, turns gray.
In Val-de-Marne or Hauts-de-Seine, the walk then becomes more urbanized, but remains bucolic.
Île-de-France (here, Boissettes) and its thousand faces parade before our eyes.
Halfway, it is a crossing of Paris that we operate.
A passage like no other of 14 kilometers - a queen stage, as one would say on the Tour de France - which, from the Quai de la Gare to Issy-les-Moulineaux, allows you to rediscover the treasures of the capital, from the BNF to Notre-Dame via the Louvre, the Grand Palais, the booksellers' stalls...
The second part of the hike then goes up, from Vaucresson to Sartrouville, in the footsteps of the Impressionists.
As we understand that they were, like us, charmed by these landscapes with changing light.
Then, crisscrossing the Yvelines and Val-d'Oise, the route reveals natural wonders before the last meanders, of breathtaking beauty, on arrival at the gates of Normandy.
We then let the Seine flow towards its terminus, towards the English Channel.
We have already worn out our sneakers.
