Mai 18/19 Rando' Flambeaux!

My first week without university and I took advantage of some quiet time. Nev was at work and after the children had gone back to school after lunch, I took off down to the river to sit in the sun and read a book. The weather was fantastic, regularly now above 25 degrees daily.
I lay in the sun and lovely lizards were on the fort walls just in front of me. I just love seeing them, they have such great colours, however if a snake appeared out of the cracks……!
On Tuesday night it was a beautiful evening and there was a walk organised in town – Rando’ Flambeeaux! It started at 8:00pm. Nev was too tired so off went the girls.
As we arrived at the start point there was music playing and a great atmosphere.We were really surprised at the amount of people out for the walk people of all ages, really little to older folk and even groups of teenagers! Looking around most people had backpacks and big hiking boots on. We didn’t even bring water as we thought it was just a stroll around the river and not too strenuous. We were given a map and informed it was an 8 km walk. OK – not too bad! Off we went, strolling around the river then people started disappearing in front of us, we ground to a halt as we were shepherded through a narrow stairway at the side of a hill. Looked up….there were all the people making a zigzag up the side of this steep hill! It seemed to go on forever but it was nice to look back down and see the hundreds of people still coming. We ended up at the top of the hill where a fort was. It had fantastic views back over Besancon.
We then walked around the Fort and started to descend the other side. We ended up back along the river, it was getting quite dark now and as we rounded a bend we saw many flamed torches. As we arrived we picked up our torches, lit them and continued on. The trail of torches in front guiding our way. It was very impressive seeing the long line in front of us! A really nice idea and very enjoyable. As we walked along the rivers edge many groups of people stopped, placed their torches in the ground and dug out bottles of wine and bread from their backpacks! Now I know why they had the backpacks! Some even had guitars and were having a singalong! At this stage it is 10:00pm and still 23 degrees!
We finished our walk at 10:30pm and were amazed to discover that the live music was on, people were dancing and their were free drinks and nibbles! It was great, as I had thought people would just finish their walk and head home but no…..
Free wine, beer, OJ, coke, water etc…ensured people hung around. The musician was great and people just danced! At one point 3 people started a line dance and by the end nearly about 100 or so had joined in – fantastic!
It just so happens that after 8pm you have to catch a night bus, they don’t run that regularly so we were stuck until 11:35pm – the last bus for the night. We arrived home at 11:45!
Luckily it was such a gorgeous night, entertainment, free wine (me!) and coke (the girls) kept us happy until the bus arrived! Another free activity!
It was such a good idea and I had thoughts of watching the line of torches winding itself up to the lookout at home, or probably better to climb first, gather torch there and wind back down!
It was one of the best nights we have had!