After the IAT 2014 Annual General Meeting in Plymouth, England, IAT/IATNL Chairperson Paul Wylezol traveled to Paris, France to meet with Madame Claude Hue, President of La Federation Francaise de la Randonnee Pedestre (FFRP) and Monsieur Armand Ducornet, Vice-President of la Federation Europeanne de la Randonnee Pedestre.
The October 13 meeting was to discuss the IAT route across France, which will connect with IAT England (via the English Channel) to the north and IAT Spain to the south.
The planned route will follow existing FFRP trails along the west coast of France, occasionally turning inland and passing through rural towns and countryside.
Along the way it will also pass through the region of Brittany – which is the most “Appalachian” of French landscapes – and the city of St. Malo, home port of early French Explorer Jacques Cartier, whose voyages into the Gulf of St Lawrence in the early 16th century laid the foundation for French colonization of eastern Canada, in particular Quebec. The IAT in Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Quebec extends to areas visited by Cartier in 1534-34.
Other items discussed at the meeting were the upcoming FFRP 2015 visit to Quebec and a future IAT story in the FFRP’s Passion Rando magazine.
The FFRP has approximately 250,000 members in over 3,000 clubs in France, while the FERP (in English, the European Ramblers Association – ERA) has over 5,000,000 members in 26 countries in Europe.
