Over the Easter break, a group of avid climbers (and us) decided to go to Fontainebleau (or ‘Font’ for short) for a long weekend of bouldering. For those of you not in the know, Fontainebleau is considered to be ‘thee’ place for Bouldering, or as they say. As can be expected from Izaskun and I, it was a somewhat last minute organised trip as our other friends Ed and Louisa mentioned that they were going. It was a place we wanted to go, so we figured why not.

 

So the week after returning from South Africa we planned our trip to Font, we were a bit concerned as we were a bit out of shape from South Africa. Even a week without climbing is difficult to get back into it and of course we are well oiled machines so we felt it when coming back. So there was just a matter of what to do with the crash mats, we have one at home which we wanted to bring along but it seemed to be not allowed on the Eurostar, well unless you check in the day before. So we decided to simply rent the mats in Paris on the way to Font.

So we head off on the Friday at around lunch time and waited in a huge queue at King’s Cross St Pancreas station but despite the length it moved along. It was also where we met with Julien and Jo, our travel companions for the weekend. After an uneventful trip we arrived Paris’ Gare du Nord at around 4pm and proceeded to retrieve the car. However we were quite surprised at the number of somewhat rough people at the station and the amount of what appeared to drug dealers. We thought it was just how stations are, they appear to attract all sorts of people.

We picked up the car in good time, after having asked for a bigger model to fit the crash mats that we were looking to retrieve soon. After finalising the paperwork we went to see the car at the local car park only about 100m from the car rental office. At the stairs towards the car park entrance, that was underground, we found a group of what appeared to be homeless, with dogs, people arguing. We decided to walk down the stairs instead of taking the lift in order to avoid them but at the entrance of the stairs was a man who was talking to us. No-one could understand what he was saying, even Julien being a frenchman. Eventually we walked down and saw a very bizarre woman shaking the corridor, we figured this was either a prostitute or a drug addict so we proceeded to pass her quickly but me with my bulky bags and narrow corridors couldn’t see what was on the group. I stepped on something that I was told was condoms and received a series of shouts from the lady. I didn’t have a clue what was going on so I just walked, Izaskun was of course, was upset with this and from what I could see blamed me for this incident but in hindsight I believe she was just unhappy at what at happened.

We left pretty promptly to retrieve our crash mats, we drove through Paris which was pretty busy as it was rush hour. After a bit of an interesting drive seeing some of the sights we eventually arrived at the climbing centre where we had arranged to collect the crash mats.

The climbing centre was called Antrebloc and is located around 7km from Paris central, in an area named Villejuif. It has some of the smallest roads I could say I’ve seen. We drove around in circles a bit before finding the place, we had to park around a block away as it was the only space we could manage. Izaskun and I volunteered to collected the crash mats that we were expecting to be booked under Julien’s name. Upon arriving to the place we quickly saw this wasn’t a very organised place.

The smell of weed could be smelled from down the road and only intensified closer to the place. After enquiring about the crash mats, it was quick to see that they didn’t know what we were asking. We then asked to simply hire to crash mats, when I say we I really mean Izaskun as I don’t speak any french at all. The guy took us to the kitchen and showed us the microwave. Erm… no. After saying crash mat in various different forms we think he understood. Good result but now we needed a 150 Euro deposit, they didn’t accept cards. Argh, time to call Julien. Luckily Julien came quickly and sorted it out and even discovered why we were shown the microwave, apparently he thought we came to their centre to ask if we could warm up our pasta!

After our shenanigans we were finally on the road ready to get to Font, of course we were excited to see a different part of France and eager to move a bit from Paris which was very congested and busy. Even for London standards. Traffic seemed to be very chaotic with people skipping red lights and driving against traffic at parts but after a 2 hour drive or we arrived to Font. We were actually staying in a AirBnb about 10 minutes drive from the main town, named Samois-sur-Seine. It was a very beautiful cute town which appeared to only have a few hundred residents but the overall maintenance and effort into the buildings really showed. The house we were staying at was a very nice house where we had rented out the ground floor that had a bedroom and a living room / second bedroom but only had one bathroom that was only accessible via the bedroom, which make logistics of bathroom visits more scheduled. Julien and Jo stayed in the larger sitting room while Izaskun and I stayed in the smaller bedroom.

Oh well, we were excited to go bouldering so we drove to an area called Cuvier Rempart which was only a few minutes drive. We were very eager to at least try something, especially as we have been in the car all day. So we quickly went over, the light was fading but we managed to arrive and play around with the rocks to get a handle how they feel and all that. We were like kids in a playground and were impressed with what seemed like miles of perfect boulders to try. It was just a shame we had only about an hour to try them out, however we were excited to try them the next day.

That evening we went out into town to meet up with Louisa, Ed and Dean, who were staying in the town centre. We went to a pizza place in town which was pretty much the only place open. It was slightly touristy, most customer appeared to be Americans, and the serve was a little to be desired but overall it was good food. It was good to also receive the day’s update from Ed, Dean and Louisa on their full day of climbing in Font. They were fortunate enough to have a sunny day something that was looking to change as we arrived. Typical.

The next day we went out in the morning to town centre of Fountainleblue to see the town and the palace. We met the full gang at the palace and were fortunate enough to see a group of people dressed in more renaissance styled clothing. It was clearly some form of event, probably an re-enactment which meant that certain areas of the palace were most likely closed for us for this event but that appeared fine as we weren’t interested in going inside as there was plenty to see from the outside.

 

 

We roamed the palace and the gardens appreciating the vast size of it.

It was then, of course, time to go bouldering. So we went out to a different area called Apremont which is a larger area with many boulder that a more spread out.

We did a short hike and managed the logistics of meeting up with Ed, Louisa, Dean and their designated driver, named Dusan. This was the first time we met with Dusan, who was very friendly and happy to show us which routes they were doing.

So, after a few hours of moving around and climbing with on / off showers, which was hard at time with wet rock. The rain is what eventually triggered my minor fall, where there was a very clear lack of spotting (watching that the climber falls on the mat). After that the overall spotting performance was way better.

After some good climbing we headed back, taking the opportunity to climb up a large boulder to get a group photo with the team, poor Jo had to stay below as she couldn’t climb up this route, nor was it wise for her to do as it was only her second time climbing. Great group photo was had followed by a scary jump which freaked out Louisa a bit but overall everyone managed and we proceeded to town.

The plan was for Jo, Julien, Izaskun and I to buy some food and go to Ed, Louisa, Dusan and Dean’s place for dinner. However as it was holidays we quickly discovered everything was closed, so we changed plans to meet up in town again for dinner. We arrived at the restaurant but soon found out that as Dusan had gone to church and taken the keys – Ed, Dean and Louisa had locked themselves in their flat. So the four of us had a great steak and wine in town while the others had to eat grapes and leftovers from the day.

Our last full day we went back to Cuvier Rempart which we figured had more routes but it also, as we found out, has more people. We left in the morning, after Julien and Jo wanting to see the market in the town centre first. We climbed a few routes and luckily found the others among the boulders, a hard task due to the lack of cellular signal. Overall Cuvier was much busier than we were the day before, so it took us a bit of time to find a spot that we liked and this time we also wanted to ensure Jo could climb some routes too, as we figured that she would get pretty bored watching us all day. After a bit of time we found our own spot and rhythm and had a great day just loosely exploring and climbing. That night we went home and had a quiet one without going out, we needed to pack and of course plan the next day, which was unfortunately our last day in France.

 

Our final day we needed to drive back to Paris and return the crash mats, which we left for at 10am after a good breakfast that Julien prepared. The trip was faster than when we had arrived and before we knew we knew it. We now had the day to spend in Paris. The weather was a bit on and off, not too different from London, with sunshine and rain. We were a bit tired from the 2 and a bit days of climbing so it took us a while to get going. We walked across from the station down to the Notre Dame, at which point we were pretty hungry and tired so we needed to get some food. We popped into a cafe which we were worried about being a tourist trap but overall turned out to be pretty decent. We ate and ended up walking a long time back to the station, Julien decided to buy a box of wine on the way and ended up carrying it across Paris which, I am sure, he started regretting along the way.

 

Our final two hours or so in Paris we again had to dodge the various beggars and drug dealers to get to the station which wasn’t too much fun. We also had the chaos of the Eurostar line that was simply chaos, however eventually we all managed to get onboard and we were back in London in time. it was around 9pm with work the next day, so we all said our goodbyes and peeled off having had a great weekend in France. Plans are already in motion for another visit, probably going around Paris thou.