While this was my first experience underground, Fuentes and his wife Virginie have shown hundreds of people this unique environment since 1992. "The oldest person to go was 74," Fuentes said in his limited but enthusiastic English, as he helped adjust my safety belt before we started out. When I had arranged the equipment to [...]

The Gouffre Geant, just outside the village of Cabrespine, is not well known outside of France because it wasn’t discovered until 1968 and not opened to the public before 1988. Most visitors now enter the cavern through a short tunnel bored like a mine shaft into the side of the mountain and view the giant [...]

A French Cave Crawl
After three hours underground, the acetylene flame on my friend’s miner’s hardhat guttered down to the size of a pencil tip and he stumbled into the darkness ahead, scraping his cheek on the dark blue marble ledge which overhung the stream we were following.
Ahead of him now was only blackness that the [...]

Language Immersion
"Vous tournez a droite," said Madame Olivier, "Vous tournez a droite," said Madame Olivier, and we turned right. "Continuez jusqu’a la pharmacie," and we went as far as the pharmacy.
I had yet to set foot in a classroom, but it was clear that my French immersion course began the moment my hostess met [...]