caves are cool even in France

Caves are usually cool places to be, a compelling thought in this heat. Depending on their access to the surface, a cave is between 55 and 65 degrees year round…quite pleasant these recent days.

Caves are a theme in several of the locally written stories on Sunday, the third edition of the new monthly travel section for The News-Herald. It wasn’t planned that way, but caves figured in the trips that Tracey Read and Michael Blair took to Indiana, the visit made by Jason Lea to Chattanooga and my own recent trip to the Lozere region of France.

I’ll have more on France in August – just in time to help you plan your own trip there this fall or next spring. I’m really sad that Continental cancelled its service between Cleveland and Paris because that flight made it so much easier to visit my favorite city.

But the Lozere region in Languedoc is about as far from Paris as a place can be, reached by a white-knuckle drive from Montpellier on the Mediterranean coast of France. I think my video captures that experience, so have a look.

We took a funicular the first 50 feet down, and then walked down stairs into the cave, which was one huge room big enough to hold several football fields, or the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Here’s my press group inside the funicular car.

I’ve had many recent calls from readers wondering why their travel section is not in their Sunday paper – its home since the 1980s. Three months ago the section went monthly, and I must say it looks good. If you haven’t seen it, I urge you to pick it up on Sunday July 11 or subscribe to The News-Herald so you can get it every month. Without your support it may go away, like so many things that once were part of daily newspapers.