We spent three nights in the Gorges du Verdon. This is France’s equivalent of the Grand Canyon. The Verdon River doesn’t look like much now, but in its heyday it carried large amounts of water from receding glaciers; hence the canyons.
A section of the Gorges du Verdon.
Although the area is popular with other Europeans, we didn’t meet any other Americans there. I have two conjectures:
- Rick Steves hasn’t done a TV show about the area yet. He does mention it in his book on Provence and the Riviera.
- The gorges are not easy to access. The nearest airport is probably in Nice. Mass transit is unavailable. The main road, 952, is very narrow with lots of hairpin turns. It’s not for the faint of heart or sphincter function. The Purple People-Eater barely made it through when we met large (for Europe) RV’s. The shoulder of the road is non-existent in spots. One oversteer and you could wind up as vulture food in the gorge. (Is the resurgence of the vulture hereabouts due to motor vehicle, bike, and hiking accidents? Who knows?)
Our home for the duration was L’Auberge du Point Sublime, a hotel/restaurant near the tiny town of Rougon. There is a Point Sublime, and it lives up to the hype. It’s an easy 10-minute walk from the hotel. L’Auberge serves killer dinners made with local sheep and goat products, produce, and honey. I was still pretty ill our first night here, so all I had was the soupe au pistou for dinner. The room was rustic, but comfortable.
Overlooking the town of Rougon.
Because I wasn’t up for hiking the gorges, we visited two larger towns in the area. We did laundry in Castellane one day. This town is a major jumping-off point for rafters, climbers, and the like. The amenities also scream the demographic – lots of pizza places and sporting goods stores. We had lunch here at a Vietnamese restaurant run by a Dutch couple. The next day we visited Moustiers-Saint-Marie. This was the first town on the trip where we encountered tour buses. As it happened, the day we checked out, our hotel was swamped catering picnic lunches for a German-speaking tour group.
A view of Moustiers-Ste.-Marie.
Both Castellane and Moustiers have hilltop Medieval churches. Many of the tourists took the steep trails up and back.
After this interlude in the hinterlands, the final leg of the trip goes for the glitz on the Riviera.
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