I might not have many vices, but I did cave in to the bouldering hype by picking up the sport in 2023 and going all-in with buying all kinds of equipment and climbing multiple times a week until my fingers got injured, which I left untreated for a year, but that’s maybe a story for a different time and place. The point I wanted to share with you is that climbing on plastic holds indoors has led me to a yearly visit to Fontainebleau, the Mecca of bouldering. At an hour’s drive south of Paris, a forest with several tens of thousands boulder problems spread across hundreds of sectors, which used to be training ground for French alpinists in the climbing off-season back in the early 1900s, can be found. While the rocks themselves are usually not that photogenic, the forest often offers some really beautiful light and angles.