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French Footpath System.
The French footpath system is 110,000 miles long and is made up of
three types of path:
Long national paths, called
sentiers de grande randonnee or GRs for short. These are
numbered—GR 3, GR 76, etc.—and are mapped on the one-sheet, 1:1,000,000
IGN map #903, France, Grande Randonnée. There are 38,000 miles of
GR trails in France; they are laid out to connect one point with another.
For example: the GR 5 runs from the Luxembourg border all the way down the
Vosges, Jura and Alp mountains to the Mediterranean. GR trails are marked
with white over red blazes.
Regional paths, called
GRPs. Only the longest of these paths are shown on IGN map #903. There
are 25,000 miles of GRP trails in France; each covers one region
thoroughly, often in a circular layout. Individual GRP trails can be well
over 100 miles long. They are marked with yellow over red blazes.
Local paths, called PRs.
These trails radiate out from many towns and villages in France offering
the visitor a chance for an hour to a day’s walk to a local beauty spot or
to a place of historical interest. These paths are marked with a single
yellow blaze or, if there are many paths that intersect—as is usually the
case—a single blaze of any colour. Officially there are 47,000 miles of
local paths but in reality there are hundreds of thousands of miles.
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