It never occurred to us that taking the back roads home would lead us directly along the Western Front of the First World War. Neither of us had seen any of the cemeteries before, so it was a surprise to find ourselves driving alongside fields full of white crosses that stretched up the hill as far as the eye could see. We had stumbled across the site of the Battles of Champagne, the last of which marked the start of a relentless Allied advance that culminated ...

I last saw Mont Blanc 19 years ago when I spent a fortnight trekking all the way around it with my old friend Steve. So it was quite an emotional sight when it suddenly came into view across the valleys from the mountain ridge of La Tournette, and made the hike in the heat all the more worthwhile. This was a very interesting mountain in its own right though, and we followed a colourful route, with marmots scurrying through fields of flowers and wild raspberri...