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Mature Flaneur
Climbing Puy de Dôme: France’s Multiple-Personality Mountain
Auvergne’s most popular hike
Puy de Dôme, in the Auvergne region of central France, is a mountain of many identities. If it were a person, it would be diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. Of course, it’s not the mountain that changes, it’s how people look at it, and what they make of it: mountain as Rorschach test, if you like.
My recent walk up the puy (which simply means a rounded hill in the local Auvergne dialect) proved more than a hike. It was an encounter with geology, physics, religion, history, architecture, aeronautics, mythology and sports! So please, come with me on the hike, and discover for yourself the many mountains that make up Puy de Dôme.
Auvergne’s Most Popular Mountain
When I began my climb one hot August afternoon, I thought I was simply walking up the hump of a dormant volcano. Puy de Dôme is just 1,465 metres (4,806 feet) above sea level, but rises only 1000 meters higher than the town of Clermont-Ferrand in the plains below. Accessibility is a big part of the puy’s charm…
