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Solar Tour 2008 – Day 10: Soon after Manosque on the route to Apt, we saw an old mill on a hill and since it was time for lunch, we decided to stop there. The Moulin de Montfuron was built under Louis XIV about 350 years ago and is the only windmill in the region, which still functions today.

From up there one has a great panoramic view over the surrounding countryside.

[singlepic=35,200,,,right]Solar  Tour 2008 – Day 10: We had about 5 days left on this tour, which meant that we could spend up to 3 more days in the Provence. We knew that we wanted to visit Nyons before returning to Holland. On the way there we wanted to visit the Luberon area, which we never visited before. In Manosque and were lucky to see a natural food store called Le Blé en Herbe. They had a great selection of organic food and we were able to get all we needed. The store belongs to biocoop, a chain of natural food stores with 311 branches all over France. On the biocoop site a list with all addresses is available, which is handy to have for traveling vegans like us.

Solar Tour 2008 – Day 9: Soon after Trigance, we reached the Verdon Gorge, the world’s second largest gorge with a length of 25 kilometers and up to 700 meters deep. We’ve visited this impressive canyon a couple of time before but each time it is worth the visit. It is just breathtaking to see the ravine, which the turquoise-green Verdon river has cut through the limestone.

The Verdon river flows into the artificial Sainte-Croix lake, which was our final destination for the day. In les Salles-sur-Verdon we wanted to stay on a campground were Chris and I have been many years before on one of our first trips.

Solar Tour 2008 – Day 8: On our way to the Gorges du Cians we passed the turquoise waters of the Lac de Castillon. The color of the water was just amazing and reminded us of the Lac de Sainte-Croix. The lake is actually an artificial reservoir with two dams in the southern tip. With the creation of the lake, the village of Castillon disappeared, but when the water is low, one can still see the old Julien bridge. On the other side of the lake one can find the naturist campground Camping Castillon de Provence, which is being owned by a Dutch couple that moved to France a couple of years ago. Their adventure of starting a new life in France had been featured on Dutch TV. According to their web site they are doing fine.
In Staint-Julien-du-Verdon we left the lake and followed the N202.

Solar Tour 2008 – Day 8: Just before the D900A reaches Digne-les-Bains coming from Barles, the road passes a high wall full of ammonites, revealing the fossils of large shells, whose creatures lived here in the sea 185 million years ago. In the area it is possible to see various other fossils, including a skeleton of an ichthyosaurus, but because of the ongoing hunting everywhere we didn’t feel like going for a hike.

Since our next destination was was still 70 kilometers away we didn’t visit Digne-les-Bains and just stopped for a lunch break in the valley of the river l’asse along the N85. Here one can also see the Train des Pignes, a railway line dating from the 1890s, connecting Nice and Digne-les-Bain.

Solar Tour 2008 – Day 8: Having passed Barles, we were on our way to the Clues de Barles, but it wasn’t certain if we could actually reach the ravine by car. Along the road we’ve seen varying signs about the limited maximum height of the road, ranging form 2.8m to 3.2m. Our car is about 3.05m high, so we were almost about to turn around. But since I didn’t want to drive through Barles again and as it would be a detour of more than 50km, we gave it a try.

When we reached the Clues de Barles, we first parked the car and walked through it. At one part the rocks where hanging low above the road, but I was confident that we could make it as long as we stay on the left side of the road. We did it very slowly with Chris walking along the car and keeping an eye on the rocks. Luckily no traffic came from the opposite direction when we passed this obstacle.

A few kilometers further on, another 2.8m sign surprised us. This time it was a tunnel with a ceiling that looked like an ice scraper. But when I walked through the tunnel I was certain that it was high enough for us, so we did it and got through without a scratch.

Geologically this landscape is very fascinating. It belongs to the Réserve Géologique de Haute-Provence, the biggest protected geological area in Europe.