This past Saturday, I had the chance to try something I have never done before: I climbed high things, dealt with annoying clips, and flew through the air with only the support of two straps under by butt. I also got sap all over my body, made my hands incredibly sore from gripping wires and old ropes, and exceeded my upper body’s strength capacity for the day. Today, my arms are really sore, and I took an atypical nap from around 12p – 1:30p–but I would certainly say that it was a fun three-hour adventure. This past Saturday, my friends, I completed a couple ropes courses in Nemours, France.
As I have since learned from Wikipedia, ropes courses like the one I did yesterday are the product of French-naval officer Georges Hébert’s desire to train his sailors in a “natural” method, and this “natural method” was the primary mode of physical education for French soldiers during the World Wars. This means that I unknowingly participated in something pretty French, and so I can safely recommend it to future study abroad students as a taste of French culture, as well as a way to get out of the city for a little while.
The hard part of doing a ropes course as an exchange student will be getting to the ropes courses. I was fortunate enough to have been invited along by a group of grad students at my school, and because they are all French and older than me, a few of them have access to cars that make traveling an hour outside of Paris relatively easy. However, there does appear to be an SNCF train that runs to Nemours, and there is a bus that will take you pretty close to the entrance of No Limit Aventure. It’s definitely worth looking into!
Happy climbing. 🙂
Amanda Lyn en France 