Here it is…

The payback is that I found the red meatiness, full flavours and multiple courses too rich for my English constitution and, at night in my bed, I frequently couldn’t sleep for the long slow digestion process. Meanwhile the winding mountain roads twisted the knife of queaziness.

But there is no doubting that French food is a gourmet treat (at the time) and so I recorded some of the meals on our ‘Cantal in winter’ trip.

1. Grilled duck and aligot – Finnish style t Camping des Blats (see the video).

2. Soup of local blonde lentils with foie gras at Auberge d’Aijean.

3. Pounti – a local soft, sweet and salty speciality of chard and prunes, also at Auberge d’Aijean.

4. Cantal cheese! You can’t come to Cantal without experiencing fantastic giant cheeseboards of Cantal (ripe and young), Salers, St Nectaire, Gaperon, Fourme, Tomme, Auvergne Blue and many more.

5. Cream of caulifower soup with blue cheese and balsamic decoration, at Instants d’Absolu Ecolodge.

6. Pig’s trotters on a bed of blonde lentils, at Instants d’Absolu Ecolodge.

7. Lamb, thyme, risotto, pear, puréed spinach, at Instants d’Absolu Ecolodge.

8. Quince with walnut and honey – caramelised, at Instants d’Absolu Ecolodge.

9. Pachade at Meije-Coste mountain refuge

10. A trio of patisseries for dessert at Auberge des Montagne

Thankyou France for your delicacies but now that I’m back, with some extra weight on my pot, I’m yearning for salad leaves, fruit and some plain toast.

La Roussiere is a luxury chambres d’hôte B&B in the Siniq valley in the Cantal. It is ranked top of TripAdvisor for B&Bs/Inns in St Clement.

Christian, the owner, had just taken us on a walk to the Capat waterfall…

…and we were warming up with tea and cake in the main room. The place was gorgeous.

But the top attraction for me was Aesop the dog and Pline the cat. I took pics until my battery ran out. Aesop in particular is a born model and seems to know when her picture is being taken, honing the pose to perfection and staying perfectly still. Pline, on the other hand, is so black, she confused the white balance on the camera.

Best of all because La Roussiere is mostly stone walls, tile floors and wooden staricase, so I wasn’t particularly allergic to the animals.

Some pictures!

Website: La Roussiere

Grilled in a Finnish kota or wooden hut with a central barbecue. Filmed at Camping des Blats in Cantal, France (more on which below).

Lunch for seven comprised: three breasts of duck, cooked enough to slice and grilled on a barbecue in the middle of the circular hut with seats around the edge.

We watched it cook while sitting on reindeer skins and breathing in the pine wood aromas of the kota.

The duck was delicious and served with bread, dressed salad and ‘aligot’, which is, like truffade and tartiflette, cheese (tomme) with potatoes and cream but this time the potato is mashed. The result is tasty, gooey melange.

Cost: 20 euros – if you cook it yourself.

Trip notes:

• Camp site in St Jacques des Blats – run by Sébastian and Delphine Deroo.
• Chalets, hookups and Finnish style kotas or huts to stay in.
• Sauna hut and Grill hut (pictured below).

Photos:

It took about an hour to walk up to Meije Coste – one of Cantal’s small, old mountain refuges at 1440m up, near Le Lorian and with views over the Plomb du Cantal highest peak.

I ran low on battery and was huffing and puffing with the effort so I ended up taking stills (more pics below) – but you get the idea of the beautiful natural surroundings.

Bernard Mommalier (pictured below) runs the hut and is also a guide. He leads snowshoeing, hiking and donkey treks. You can also stop overnight and cook at the hut. Or arrange the food through Bernard.

Website: Buron de Meije Coste

Trip notes:

• A stew was cooking on the stove. Meanwhile, Bernard had prepared some ‘Pachade’ for us to eat and refuel This comprised two thick crepes sandwiched together and filled a blackcurrant jam with sugar sprinkled on top. Tasty stodge.

• There is a 15-person dorm at the back for walkers.

• A guest book comment reads: “It is a place to discover a love of the mountains.” – Guy & family, Australia.

• The price of a snowshoeing weekend based from here is 150 euros (one night) or 200 euros (two nights) including accommodation, guide, snowshoe hire and food. Book through Bernard at the website.

• You can also cross-ski or mountain ski (randonee) from here but as Bernard says: “It is like Scotland” – not just in terms of Highland-like scenery but for the weather – with unpredictable snowfall, very cold and lots of ice.

• The sign outside the hut ‘In truffade we believe’ is a local rival adaptation of ‘In tartiflette we trust’ – which is a ski slogan found on bumper stickers, clothes and other merch.

Photos:

I can’t ski so I took the opportunity to film life at the top of the cable car at Le Lorian ski resort in Cantal. This little film features a mountain rescue, some aerial skier shots and the cable car ride back down to the valley.

Resort info: Le Lorian

Trip notes:

• Chez Lucy near the car park at Le Lorian is run by a friendly English woman. Lucy is originally from Cornwall, has a big smile and looks quite a bit like the former model turned Emmerdale actress, Lorraine Chase.

• Lunch at Chez Lucy was reasonably priced with plenty of stodge to fuel the skiing. Cheese soup! (Soupe au fromage) – grated cheese and stock (5’50 euros). Tartiflette Auvergnette au St Nectaire, cheese and potatoes (11 euros). Fondant au chocolat – like a Gü, melted brownie (4’80 euros). This choc pudding, though not the fanciest, was the tastiest of the whole trip for me.

• Decor was fairly functional but also cosy, cottagey and warm.

This is the one-line pitch that got my commission to write on the Cantal region of France. Unfortunately, one crucial element – the snow – has been a no-show this week with none falling in this area of the Auvergne since December.

The result is hard, compacted snow and snowshoeing that delivers maximum noisy crunch over ambient soft tread. Turn up the volume of this one-minute video of our hike to the Puy Mary peak to appreciate the full effect of our snowshoe (aka raquettes) experience in Cantal.

So what happens when there is no snow?

• The PR lady gives a Gallic shrug (or garlic shrug, as my phone’s auto-correct has it) and says the following a lot: “Imagine this with snow…”
• The auberge owner gives a slideshow of absolutely stunning images of snowy nature. We then go outside in the drizzle and fog.
• The local ski resort Le Lorian puts on their artificial snow-making machines at full blast to cover the lower pistes.

Things I have learnt about snowshoeing

• Take long steps – or you catch one snowshoe in the other. It feels a little like walking in giant flipflops as the heel end is loose (as shown in the video around 40-second mark).
• Wear layers as it can get quite hot with the exercise. Bring sunglasses and always wear sunscreen.
• If you get the chance to snowshoe at night by the full moon, do it. Walking around mountains in the dark is both beautiful and exhilarating.
• It’s the perfect sport for the non-skilled and not-too-fit – it is pretty aerobic but, unlike skiing with all its advance prep, all you have to do is know how to walk.
• Bring water – walking on raquettes in the high mountains gets your pulses racing but the dry, cool air is like breathing in ice cubes.

And here is the view from my window, with the snowy Puy Mary peak far right:

See that mountain opposite? I walked up along that, I did.

Auberge d’Aijean is run by Bruno and Valerie, who are natives of Cantal. They’ve been here for six years; Aijean is a portmanteau word formed from the names of their two children.

Pounti (below) is a speciality of chef Bruno – originally a peasant dish, it looks like green French toast, thanks to the addition of chard leaf. Soft, sweet and salty, fried up with prunes and served with leafy salad.

The auberge is made of stone and has a very solid feel about it with solid wood and tiled floors, antique furniture, giant armoires, small bureaux, but with modern comforts. If hipsters did rustic country chic… As someone pointed out on Twitter, if I am staying at an auberge, does that make me an aubergine? Punning in French! I like it.

The first thing that hits on entering is the smoky, woody smell of burning logs. Listening to French jazz by the big inglenook fireplace with a crackling fire, a six-ft high pile of wood logs, espresso and home-baked almond-topped muffin; looking at the sleeping volcanoes all around.

Best news for me is that there is wifi. Tip for English speakers: ask for weefee. ‘Password’ in French is: Code. So, here is my new blogging office…

And here is my window on the world for the next two days…

Pretty nice, eh?

Website: Auberge d’Aijean

From Clermont-Ferrand to Murat takes about 90 minutes by train, and cost me £17 one way. Then it was a transfer by car to Bruno and Valerie’s Auberge d’Aijean, our inn for the night. Just past Murat, you can see the snowline appearing for the first time.

The winter here has been mild. It is still scenic in a wintry way but I can imagine how this notches up quite a few extra beauty points when covered in snow. Still, Valerie guided me on a nature hike this afternoon, which was pretty and helped me acclimatise from my sedentary job to actually walking. Tomorrow morning we get to snowshoe on the Puy Mary volcano peak.

So, the press trip is about to start – the two other journalists are arriving in half an hour and we will begin with a Nordic bath, which I believe is a a sort of alfresco hot tub, before chef Bruno’s dinner.

Apologies for awkward wordflows. I’ve been speaking in broken French for two days and my writing is stuck in transit.

Clermont-Ferrand is one of the oldest cities in France and is formed of two towns united over the centuries – bicephalous. This is a new word for me but apparently it means it has two heads.

Below are some recommendations of things to do/see/avoid, crossed with some photo favourites from today’s wander from Clermont (Gothic/Renaissance/Medieval style) to Montferrand (fortified Medieval style) – and back.

1. It’s tourist-price but the mirrored Garden Ice Café in Place de Jaude is a nice spot to have a coffee and a bite, and people/dog watch.

2. The honey-coloured Romanesque basilica of Notre Dame du Port in Clermont is the only light and airy church I’ve seen today. Note the intricate carvings atop each of its pillars. In contrast there is a crypt-like section under the altar that is incredibly dark and spooky. Update: Wikipedia says: “In 1998 the Basilica of Notre-Dame du Port was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list as part of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France.” Should I start walking to Spain?

3. Jardin Lecoq offers impressively large trees, marble statues of naked ladies, several fountains, park playgrounds and the rare chance to photograph a dipping swan from above. Apparently there are toad sculptures worth seeing somewhere in the park but I missed them.

4. There are 40-plus fountains dotted around CF. Get the ‘Guide to the Fountains’ booklet to go on a guided tour of all of them. I saw about eight but this one in Jardin Lecoq came out best.

5. Le marché aux puces aux Salins is a flea market on Sundays 7am to 1pm. There are cheap clothes, food stalls and an extraordinary amount of oddities.

6. The Gothic Cathedral is beautiful by day but I particularly liked it in the evening – definitely a more Goth time of the day. It’s also black as it was made out of lava stone from the surrounding volcanoes. Gothtastic!

7. There are several places around Clermont where you can look down a long boulevard and, at the distant end of it, see the Puy de Dôme volcano. At 1,465m high, it is the tallest of the 80 ‘sleeping volcanoes’ in the Auvergne. This final shot was taken from the Hotel de Ville gardens, just past sunset.

Some tips…

8. Take the tram. 1 euro 40 buys an hour and 10 mins hop-on hop-off time and was enough to get me to Montferrand for a wander and then back to Clermont.

9. Avoid the dog sh*t
It’s here, there and everywhere.

10. Look out for the mice

11. And finally do not try to enter the Trompe L’oeuil. You WILL get hurt.