The best walks and hikes around Lavoine

Do it without moderation.

great ride but remember to charge the batteries before leaving.....

The immense Bois Noirs forest offers several cycling and hiking trails for nature lovers.

As you walk along the track that runs through the forest towards the Saint-Vincent rock, the trees part for a moment to reveal the wind turbines.

Saint-Vincent Rock is an imposing volcanic rock that offers breathtaking views of the surrounding forests and valleys. It is a natural wonder that dates back millions of years, when lava erupted from a fissure. Later, the sea receded, and tectonic movement lifted the lava, creating the impressive rock that stands today. You can explore the ruins of an ancient castle that once crowned the rock and admire a statue of the Virgin and Child, called "Our Lady of Up There," installed in 2012.

The Puy de Montoncel is an extinct volcano, culminating at an altitude of 1,287 meters. In a notebook, I wrote about it: "Its slopes are covered with a majestic thorn forest, with an archaic, sometimes primal beauty. The rare paths that cut through the woods wind along the slopes, in the shade of the green giants. These paths are the veins of the forest. They are tunnels of abundant oxygen. From meadows to groves, I feel as if I'm floating on an ocean of nature. At the summit of the puy, I find a plateau devoid of trees as if blown by the wind, and topped with a thick thatch. A huge iron cross rises into the sky, looking mischievously at the wind turbines on the neighboring ridges, which come to life with the sound of the air." I sit down on a wide carpet of green grass, a veritable velvet to rest my body after this first, sweaty climb. I light a pipe and cheerfully observe the Auvergne volcanoes that swell the horizon. Their supple, rounded shapes give the impression of observing distant hills. Puy-de-Dôme, Monts Dore, Puy-de-Sancy, I amuse myself by guessing the roofs I was clambering over the previous year.

What the runner walking quickly past encounters off the path are the modern heirs of the historic windmills, because centuries ago our ancestors were clever enough to harness the power of the elements for their own purposes. They used the wind captured in the blades to drive the heavy millstones, so that grain could be ground into flour, for example. While in the past, attention was paid to the architecture of each individual mill, this modern and unaesthetic variant - which is used to generate electricity - has simply been built en masse in the landscape. These wind farms, which are designed for efficiency, are not without controversy, because on the one hand, no consideration is given to the landscape when they are built, and above all, the slender blades become a death trap for birds.

At the crest of Chemin de la Ligue, the tops of the trees are not the only ones nourished by the wind. Here, you walk at the foot of the wind turbines. Immense, they impress as much by their size as by the monotonous sound they emit.