Country:
City:
Park your car in the Prés de Côme car park, accessible via the D559 from the Vulcania roundabout.
(S/E) As you leave the car park, take the path on the left marked with a yellow PR® arrow.
(1) At the four-way junction, turn left, staying on the yellow PR® path. At the next four-way junction, stay on the same path, which immediately bends to the left. Further on, you’ll pass a spring catchment.
(2) Shortly after the end of the catchment enclosure, leave the path and take a faint track branching off to the left, at a mountain bike marker on a tree. Immediately, two tracks appear: veer to the right, ignoring the yellow markings and following an unofficial light green marker (and continue to do so for this entire section of the track). Shortly afterwards, you’ll come to another Fork in the road; keep right, then at the next Fork in the road shortly after, keep left. (It’s useful to usethe Visorando app on this section. Alternatively, you can continue along the track to avoid this path, which runs parallel to it.) Further on, the path rejoins the track, opposite another spring catchment.
(3) Continue to the left and, just after, ignore the path on the right behind the catchment enclosure. You’ll reach a T-junction with a path; follow it to the left. Further on, ignore a path on the right. You’ll eventually reach the D559.
(4) Carefully follow this fairly quiet road to the right for about a hundred metres, then take the first path on the left. (This path will be very muddy in winter. During the summer, it retains very large puddles that are home to amphibian larvae, which sometimes attract a few grass snakes).
(5) Ignore a fork where two paths branch off to the left and stay on this track, signposted here as Tour de Côme.
(6) Ignore a path on the left. Further on, you’ll reach the Bacs de Ceyssat site. As soon as you arrive in the clearing, look out for the hairpin bend on the left—this is the path you’ll take to head back—then continue on to the troughs. These are a series of drinking troughs for sheep, supplied with water via an aqueduct, as water does not remain on the surface of these solidified lava flows. In spring, you will find frogspawn here.
(7) Turn back and leave the site via the first path branching off to the right of the approach path, heading north-east. You will come to a clearing (gentian flowers in June – please do not pick them! Thank you).
(8) Turn left onto the path heading due north, which follows the GR®4 and 89 routes: follow the red and white markings until otherwise indicated. Please note: the maps are not up to date regarding the current route of the GR® trails in this area. You will come to a ‘no entry’ fence near a small post bearing GR® signposts. Head up to the right, following the Tour de Côme route. Further on, you will pass an information board in the meadow (many martagon lilies in bloom in late June – picking is prohibited! Thank you).
(9) At the junction (back on the old GR® route), marker 1026 m, follow the signs for Chabanne Vieille to the right.
(10) At the next junction, marked ‘Pied du Puy de Côme’, keep left towards Vulcania. Further on, to the right of the path, note two Volvic stone markers inscribed ‘Puy Clierson 1199 m’ and ‘Puy Grand Knoll 1231 m’, at the points where the summits of these puys are visible. You will reach the Chabanne Vieille signpost (the site of a former barn (chabanne) belonging to the abbey that once farmed these lands; see the information boards in the car park).
(11) Keep left, taking the path which is not signposted. At the same time, leave the GR® route. Pass through an area with beautiful beech trees and plenty of horsetails, then note another marker on the left of the path, inscribed ‘Puy de Côme 1251 m’, at the junction with a track, facing a meadow.
(12) Turn left. Further on, ignore a path on the left (Tour de Côme) and continue right along the track until you reach the D559. Cross the road and climb the steps to return to your car park (S/E) past the information boards about the Puy de Côme.
Visorando Member
Moderate 
