Monthermé and the Dames de Meuse: The Ardennes Rock Ridges

Required Activities

• Climb through the state forest of Château-Regnault to Roc la Tour at 400 m and stand among the quartzite columns that the legend says are all the devil left of a castle he was building in a night, when a cockerel crowed too early and he smashed it in a rage — protected since 20 August 1935 on criteria that include the legendary

• At Roc la Tour, pick out the three quartzite tors, each seven to eight metres high, and the wall of ten to fifteen metres beside them, then find the flat ground where Jean-Georges and Colette Rozoy dug the camp that a dozen people used at the end of the last ice age — the traces found here in the 1970s are about 15,000 years old

• Climb the left bank above Laifour to the Dames de Meuse and count the three beech-covered rock humps at about 400 m that the legend says are three unfaithful wives turned to stone on the day Jerusalem fell to the First Crusade — look across to the hamlet of la Petite Commune on the Revin bank while you do it

• Walk up to the Croix Sainte-Anne to look straight down on the Semoy joining the Meuse, then go on to the Roche aux Sept Villages and see whether you can pick out all seven, and to the Roche à Sept Heures for the loop of the Meuse and the slate beds in the outcrop under your feet