Let's Travel Europe: Wet and wild.

Wednesday 6th June

Out for a drive today to see the Gorges de Verdon. The road out of Digne les Bains follows the Train des Pignes which runs down to Nice. On some Sundays it is a steam train. We had aimed to do this train trip from Nice up and back the first time we were in France but a train strike then put paid to that. We thought about it again this time, but they are doing work on the line so it's only the train for a short distance and then bus to Nice. We really didn't want to take a bus trip – it was about the train winding through those pretty villages along the way. The drive along the valley following the train line was very pretty.

First stop was the town of Castellane which has a medieval centre. Today was market day in Castellane so of course we stopped for a look. Tasted the cheeses and decided to buy a piece – oops! It was nearly a kilo of cheese and a whopping price; just as well we like it! We wandered in to the heart of the village and sat for morning tea – banana and chocolate crepe. Yum!

Market day in Castellane.

I don't know if there was a road up to this church or not.
I wonder how many trudge up the mountain each week?

The gorge is a long ‘valley’ where the Verdon river passes through the steep gorges. Some absolutely stunning scenery along the road which was thankfully one way for part of it, because there was certainly no space for 2 cars. Rob enjoys the driving on the challenging roads – I don't, but put up with it if I want to see stuff. The weather was not being very co operative today and we were trying to stop at viewing points when it was not raining and the cloud was not obscuring the scenery. At one point we debated waiting for the rain to stop but we've had rain nearly every afternoon this week and there were no guarantees.

The road we were on eventually wound down to this viewing spot.
This was where the road became two-way again.

Yes, at times we were above the clouds.
The river was a beautiful milky green colour.

Towards the end of the gorge drive we came to this beautiful lake.

I thought these people had a raft that they were using on the river
but a close look showed that they were wearing flippers.
We didn't wait to see them take off.

Don't know what purpose these caves served, or how old they might be.

Finally away from the gorge we stopped in a little town called La Palud sur Verdon at a place called Joe le Snackys. It's often surprising to find some great little eating places in out of the way villages. Rob had a lovely roast chicken meal and I had a quiche. All very reasonably priced.

From there we wound our way home through a couple of small villages on our beautiful villages list.