Vosges

Les Vosges is a mountain system that is situated close to the city of Strasbourg in the north east of France, which separates the regions of Alsace and Lorraine.

The Grand Ballon is the highest peak, which sits at 1424 metres above sea level, and, from there, there are some really good views of the mountain and its other slopes. I guess that it's called this because its like a kind of white ball that looks like a balloon.

If you like nature, mountaineering or other similar sports, this is the place for you! Although, it's true that Strasbourg is home to lots of other nature-based places that you can also visit.

I went to Les Vosges as part of a trip organised by my university, L'école de management, on a minibus that dropped us off about less than an hour away from the Grand Ballon. From there, we continued the journey on foot and, although it was April, there were several snow-topped areas, so wear sturdy footwear! A friend of mine just wore normal shoes without socks and she really suffered; it was just fortunate that the organisers had brought a couple of spare pairs of socks with them. In the shaded areas, it was quite cold, but in the sunnier spots, we were very much enjoying ourselves.

When we arrived at the Grand Ballon, we lay down, enjoyed the views, had a wander around, took photos, and had a little picnic; the trip organisers kindly brought us a bottle of French wine to drink. There were around seven or eight people hand-gliding just above us, which really grabbed our attention. We would have absolutely loved to have been able to fly over the mountain and we were told that we could hire the equipment, but our visit was too short to do so because we were going to the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg straight after.

The worst thing of all was the descent from the top of the mountain, as the snow made the terrain slippy and we ended up falling quite a bit. However, despite all that, I found it quite funny because we were just playing a waiting game of who was going to be the next to fall.

Close to the Gran Ballon, there is a restaurant that we decided to stop at for a quick rest and to use the toilet. They have wooden tables outside the restaurant that we sat at (fortunately, we didn't have to order anything), but we went to the bathroom, we noticed that they were looking at us a lot, and it looked like it was an expensive restaurant.

You can travel there by car, but I would also suggest paying attention to the Erasmus Facebook groups because people who organise the trips post in these to try and get more people to sign up.