EXTINCT VOLCANOES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 September 1938, Page 7

EXTINCT VOLCANOES

FRENCH HOLIDAY RESORTS. Auvergne possesses a large number of extinct volcanoes, and many French people make their holidays among these curiosities. The landscape is unique in Europe, with the mountains rising abruptly out of the ground. There is one spot, at Sancy, where seven valleys can be seen, and the sight from this height is like looking at a giant sea whose waves have suddenly been immobilised. Many of the craters are filled with pine forests, and to climb to the crater’s edge among the trees, and/then go down among more trees, with their gnarled roots often showing above the soil, reminds one of Dante’s description of the approach to the Inferno. The Plomb du Cantal, from which here is another magnificent view, is 6,100 feet high, and is the widest extinct volcano in the world. What is considered one the grandest views in the whole of France is to be. found in this region, at the Lac de Guery, six miles from Mont Dore. Near the lake there is a pass, from which the view extends over a valley, with the rocks of Tuilieres on one side and Sanadoire on the other, each over 4,000 feet high. It was in the rock of Sanadoire that there was a fortress held for a long time by a band of English soldiers, eventually chased out of their stronghold in 1386. In this region there is a tract of land which is absolutely bare and is famous for its lunar landscape. Le Puy-en-Valey, also in Auvergne, is among the most curious towns in the world, with its rock of St Michel rising straight up into the air, with a twelfth century church perched on the top.