Driving day today. We headed north from Grasse, and into the heart of Provence Haute Alpes - the high mountains that lie between the main part of Provence and the sea. The road wound up and up, and then through a series of high valleys, dotted with beautifully picturesque stone houses and villages. We stopped briefly at the town of Castellane, which holds a commanding position across a pass in the mountains, and has many plaques commemorating local boys who died “Les mortes glorieuses” in WW2, defending their town.
We stopped again about 20km down the road, over an old stone bridge and down to picnic beside a lovely river. A classic Provencal picnic - fresh baguettes, cheese, salami, dark chocolate and a robust red wine. Divine!
We then spent the next hour or so meandering through the most amazing landscape of steep limestone hills, with sheer cliffs down to the river flowing at the bottom of the gorge. The road was carved out of the rock, and featured rocky overhangs, tunnels, and many hairpin bends. The numerous motorcyclists that zipped past looked like they were having a ball!
About now we realised that we had only covered about a quarter of our travel for the day, we were meant to check into tonight’s hotel by 6pm, and it was now 4pm. We scooted to the closest peage, jumped onto it, and chewed up the miles to Rognonas, a small village just south of Avignon. We were only an hour late for checkin, but no worries, kids into the pool by 7.15 and all done and inside for dinner by the time the rain started bucketing down around 9pm.
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| View from our hotel window - looking over Grasse, and out to Cannes on the coast. |
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| Small town of Castellane |
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| Picturesque road in Castellane |
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| Geology in action - just look at that uplifted sedimentary strata!!! |
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| Our picnic sport, in the Gorge of the river Verdon |
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| The road through the Verdon gorge |
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| Looking out over the lake at the end of the gorge |
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