Barjac is a patchwork of narrow streets and unexpected squares, long shadows and the langorous, whispery silences of endless afternoons.

With peace comes expansion and Barjac has long since outgrown the natural advantage of its hilltop position. Newer houses spread out along new roads, welling up like fresh water from the fountain basin of the town square, before petering out in the dusty plains beyond.

Barjac’s community mixes ever fewer suspicious locals and ever more leathery expats. Colourful posters in shop windows advertise events that always seem to take place after you’ve left. In the windows themselves are the fruits of artisanal activities, priced high enough that few visitors will trouble the windchimes hanging from the door.

The French spoken in Barjac sounds like French spoken underwater. You can count on one hand the people who look like people who live here, yet the town has two driving schools.

Last year, while passing through Roussillon I imagined that tourism was tolerated as a necessary evil, that when Summer was over life could start again like Spring postponed.

Here in Barjac, some of those who arrived as tourists have never left, to judge from the names on letterboxes. The distant march of the hammer and drill is getting louder. And to keep this town breathing, yet more tourism will be needed.

New life is being breathed into Barjac, but some may be uncomfortable with the form it’s taking.

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Barjac

A small, medieval town on the northern edge of the Gard, not yet completely swamped by tourists.

This wasn’t our first visit to the Pont du Gard, one of the world’s finest remaining examples of Roman engineering. We came here during a short holiday in 2007 in similar, baking temperatures. Finding ourselves at a loose end and in the area, I wanted to come back and get a few more photos.

The aqueduct was built in the middle of the first century AD to swell the hard-pressed wells of Nemausus (Nîmes). The stone blocks of which it consists are sometimes huge and so accurately cut as to negate the use of mortar.

At the time of writing and unlike most other UNESCO World Heritage Sites, here there’s a cost. You’re actually paying for the facilities rather than the Pont du Gard, but at €15 per vehicle per day, a flying visit offers less value than taking along a picnic.

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Pont du Gard

One of the world's finest remaining examples of Roman engineering.

We stepped outside the Drôme for a day to have a look at the quirky little village of Pont-en-Royans.

The “Pont” that gives the village its name is barely three metres across, but topographically this is a conveniently narrow point in the Gorges de la Bourne.

According to the Wikipedia article in French, there were many more of the famous hanging houses in the nineteenth century than those that now remain.

Indeed, the touristic appeal of the place seems only to have been appreciated relatively recently, when the façades of these houses were given a lick of paint.

Elsewhere, perhaps more famous are the Grands Goulets, carved rock tunnels collectively enabling a remarkable road that joins Pont-en-Royans to the Vercors. Sadly, at the time of writing, the road was closed due to rockfalls. Now that a sophisticated new tunnel has been opened a few metres away, it is very unlikely that the Goulets will reopen to road traffic.

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Pont-en-Royans

We stepped outside the Drôme for a day to have a look at the quirky little village of Pont-en-Royans.

It might not be especially high, but the summit of the Bec Pointu (1,342m) is pretty tough to reach from the southwest side. The trail is rather poorly marked and there are often multiple possibilities, so making for a general target is the best way to get around.

We also decided to follow this in reverse to our plan and that does seem to have had an effect on the facility of following the route. Nevertheless, we’re glad we did reverse it, since we both agreed that climbing to the Col des Teulières (1,170m) would have been really difficult on such a hot day.

• Distance: 15km
• Overview: steep climbs and descents, very narrow trails; beautiful views, flowers
• Merci à Marcel @ Microdrome pour les infos

Larger map of this route

The last section of this walk (or the first, depending on the direction) follows a long section of road through the stunning Gorges d’Omblèze, which requires caution due to the number of blind bends.

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Bec Pointu

The peak of this small mountain (1,342m) may not be so high but it's pretty tough to get to!

As 1944 arrived in the Vercors, along with the cold winds and frosty temperatures, there was also tension in the air.

Plans for operations in the mountains had been approved. Local officials from Grenoble had organised themselves. The previous year, youths had absconded when required to do work in Germany and hidden in the hills. Eventually, even a Republic of the Vercors was declared.

Hundreds of people had scattered among the woods, caves and mountains for many months, well away from the occupiers and sustained by sympathetic locals.

All were waiting for the word from London. Attacking the enemy rear would divert resources from its defence of the northern coast. In the meantime, allied planes dropped light weapons, munitions and supplies. The maquisards bided their time with training and small operations.

Reprisals

As the target of these efforts, the occupiers were however well-informed. Like a summer storm, the growing presence of a threat at higher altitude did not go entirely unnoticed.

The occupier took decisive action. A force consisting of between 10 and 20,000 personnel was raised to deal with the maquis. From January onwards, the occupier ousted the resistants from the last of their lower lying bases, killing civilians and burning villages.

Higher up, the maquis were more difficult to dislodge. In July, gliders landed on the plateau near Vassieux and, under fire from the maquis, those who had landed moved quickly into the village. Almost a fifth of the civilian population of Vassieux was murdered and the village torched.

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Vassieux-en-Vercors

At Vassieux-en-Vercors there are three main monuments to the events of 1944, when resistance to the occupation was brutally crushed.

Remembrance

At Vassieux today, there are three main monuments to the events of 1944. The necropolis on the road to La Chapelle contains the graves of over an hundred resistants. Many of their names will become familiar to those who subsequently visit the Memorial atop the airy Col de Lachau and the newly-opened museum in the centre of Vassieux itself.

The Memorial features the testimony of those who survived and the stories of those who did not. Visitors emerge to find an impressive panorama of the Vercors ridge, with Les Moucherolles on the extreme left, towering above Villard-de-Lans. The stout Grand Veymont dominates the centre, as impassive as when we had climbed it last week. To the right, the rocky crests of the Glandasse cutting deep into the Diois.

Below the Col, many of the hamlets and farmsteads torched by the enemy forces have risen again. Likewise the little town of Vassieux, rebuilt immediately after the war with the labour of prisoners of war, at least one of whom the Memorial records as becoming a permanent resident.

Behind the church, the museum was in its first week of opening with an impressive collection. The exhibits are grouped chronologically, presenting the Vercors before, during and after 1944.

As the days progress, the respective last days of each of the resistants are marked, along with the circumstances of their death. Some events, such as the occupier’s discovery of the Grotte de la Luire – a hastily improvised hospital for injured resistants – record a disconcertingly high number of individuals, executed in situ, often accompanied by graphic images.

A quiet, restful day during which the most we seem to have achieved was a visit the supermarket down the valley in Die. The old town is short of breath in this decidedly unalpine heat.

No need to feel lazy: such rest was truly earned. Yesterday we climbed the 2,391m Grand Veymont, one of the Vercors’ highest peaks.

Having driven the neverending switchbacks of the Col de Rousset and up a hair-raising, seven-kilometre singletrack road, we donned our boots and set off on a less-travelled and probably more arduous walking route to most of those with whom we shared the summit.

• Distance: 22km
• Overview: scrambling over rocks, steep climbs and descents, narrow trails; beautiful views, plenty of nature
• Caution: risk of rockfalls, lack of water in this region

Larger map of this route

On the approach, we were following an older local couple. Whenever we caught up and paused for breath, the authoritative madame would point out far-off wildlife that we might otherwise have missed.

Later they dropped us and we lost sight of them until the summit, where I had to admit to their sincere amusement that this wasn’t Flanders.

As I donned my warm layer, le plat pays was indeed many moons away, though from up here I rather thought that I could see it.

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Grand Veymont

Climbing the highest mountain (2,346m) in the Vercors chain.

At every step of the mountainside, whether on brittle white rock or thin brown soil, there existed a self-contained little world inhibited by wildflowers, tufty grasses and insects. Over the rockier sections, I imagined the course of an invisible stream with the near-vertical pathway as its bed, but apart from the brief residue of already forgotten snows, this is dry country.

Apart from the helpful couple, there must have been fifty others at this densely populated summit, faces flushed with heat and varying degrees of pride at their latest achievement. A cold wind blew as each walker sought out a spot to eat their casse-croute. Fortunately, there were plenty of panoramic vistas to go round.

To the north, the spine of the Vercors could be seen stretching into the haze as far as Grenoble. To the south, the Glandasse and the prominent Dent de Die.

The descent was steep and rocky and coming down can be just as tiring as going up on trails like this. As on the way up, it was essential to guard against rockfalls.

Below the Pas des Chattons, through Bonnevau and the Cabane Bergerie beyond that, the extraordinary number of flies was sometimes unpleasant.

We ended the day by descending on another Route Forestière, this time the Rachier, passing one of the very few water sources in the area before reaching the trees and the Maison de la Coche.

Evening has fallen and I’m sitting on a veranda, breathing in the strawy disinfectant smells of nearby livestock. I can hear cicadas and the constant low, snowy interference sound of a river or trees in the wind. Closer at hand, the muffled voice of an older lady agreeing with another who is or isn’t there.

Nocturnal insects are teeming around an outside light and I’m struggling with an AZERTY keyboard on what might be the only laptop for miles around.

Out there, right in front of me, is an imposing, white mountain ridge. As night turns the colour of a police uniform, I can no longer see that imposing, fearsome giant, but we are both very aware of each other.

We have come to the edge of the Alps where, high above and beyond that ridge, a broad, dry plateau extends as far as the next array of obstacles. So continues this strange march, the uneasy rhythm of rise and fall, ever more irregular until the foggy descent to the Italian lakes.

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Romeyer and Die

In the shadow of the Glandasse plateau, a narrow road runs from the tiny village of Romeyer down to Die in the valley bottom.

Tour de Bar, Palais Ducal, Dijon

We reacquainted ourselves with the half-forgotten world of service stations, with their acrid coffee and grubby, echoey toilets.

We’d thought ourselves wise to set out early in the cool haze that follows soon after dawn, with several weeks in hand over the annual summer exodus. In reality, it was a strategy in common with many others and the advantage seemed minimal by the time we slid into Lorraine.

Traffic was ugly around Metz, where drivers yawned, smoked and made early phone calls, doing anything but concentrating on the road. Things were calmer after the fork for Strasbourg and we took a break someplace with friendly staff and murderous pastries.

By mid-morning, we had reached the fringes of Dijon, capital of Burgundy and keyholder to vast estates of national history.

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City of Dijon

Capital of the storied region of Burgundy and home to the Ducs de Bourgogne.

In common with other old French cities, the characterful central quarters of Dijon are walled in by brutalist banlieues and ill-conceived business areas.

Equally however, the fine reward for the visitor’s perseverance is a carefully maintained and proudly publicised historical core.

The Ducal palace complex, the churches and the Musée des Beaux-Arts are all splendid, making it entirely possible to forgive the touristic cliché of mustard.

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Musée des Beaux Arts, Dijon

Housed within the Palais Ducal, Dijon's Beaux Arts collection is impressive.

This is quite a tough route in and around the wine villages of Alsace. Not especially technical, but given the general topography there was a lot of climbing to be done.

The route is particularly representative of the region: castles (often ruins), vineyards and panoramic views.

• Walking route: Châtenois – Wick – Haut-Kœnigsbourg – Orschwiller – Kintzheim – Châtenois (loop)
• Distance: 21km

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Castles and vineyards

Walking in the foothills of the Vosges on a rainy Monday in November.

The Club Vosgien has marked out several routes in the area – though I believe none of them are loops per se – and we followed several throughout the course of the day.

Since we walked this route in November, we didn’t really get to enjoy the panoramic views and diverse nature for which this part of Alsace is renowned. It rained without a pause and the differences in altitude brought thick fog that obscured the Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg and clung to the wooded hillsides above the vineyards.

Larger map of this route

Squeezed between the Vosges and the Rhine the Alsace region stretches narrowly along France’s spine, flanked by Germany to the north and east and by Switzerland to the south.

To the west Alsace borders Lorraine, a region towards which it has traditionally held a superiority complex. Historically however, Alsace and Lorraine have often shared similar characteristics and suffered similar setbacks.

Both regions were formerly part of the kingdom of Lotharingia and suffered terribly from plagues in the fourteenth century.

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Alsace

Even in November, France's eastern region is all about wine, cabbage and fondant fancy houses

Then as feudal Europe splintered into fiefs, duchies and bishoprics, the fateful geography of these regions – on the faultline of Germanic and Frankish cultures – guaranteed them a seemingly eternal status as hotspots for disputes.

And like its neighbour Alsace had until recently an established mining industry, but its capacity for fuelling French fires made it a frequent target for German expansionism.

Today those reignited old rivalries that saw Alsace change hands no less than four times in 75 years now seem thankfully extinguished. Yet the positive influences of German culture on Alsace were both strong and lasting.

For like Germany, Alsace is peppery and picturesque: black letter typography, sauerkraut and a notable passion for horology are all common elements. Many of the vine varieties cultivated on the fertile banks further east in Germany also line the foothills of the Vosges.

In the event, the cold November rain turned out to be harder to stomach than the choucroute garnie (though I confess I didn’t fancy the latter either). Even when the sun shone quite unexpectedly on our first day in Strasbourg, we knew it could only be a stay of execution.

Between Strasbourg and Colmar – where I discovered that most of my preconceptions about Alsace were in fact preconceptions about Rheinish Germany – the wine villages line up neatly for the touristic Route du Vin.

When November falls in these villages, the plurality of which points to Alsace’s historically dense population, not a single person can be seen in the streets. There’s aromatic smoke from the chimneys and the occasional foody smells, but that doesn’t shift the sense of unease that hangs thick like a raincloud. Goldilocks could eat her porridge in peace around here.

High above, the Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg perches, faintly pompous and flushed with the colour of pink stone. Ruined in the Thirty Years’ War while under the control of the Dukes of Lorraine, Kaiser Wilhelm had it restored in 1900 after taking control of Alsace. The Germans took almost ten years to finish the job, then ten more years to lose Alsace – and the château – to the French.