walker-online

Solar Tour 2008 – Day 8: The next place we wanted to see on the 8th day of our tour was the Gorges du Cians near Rigaud. The Cians is a mountain river that flows through the Alpes-Maritimes department. Special about this gorge are the red schist rocks. Most spectacular is the small valley below the bridge on the road to Pierlas with rapids and small waterfalls. Without knowing about it one could easily miss it when crossing the narrow bridge. There is no official path leading down to the riverbed, but with some effort one can get there.

This day has been a very busy day for us, but we’ve seen a lot of impressive places. After visiting the Gorges du Cians we followed the N202 towards the Côte d’Azur and went on a campground in Le Bar-sur-Loup. We usually avoid the Côte d’Azur with its intensive tourism and higher crime rate, but recently we’ve learned about some villages in the hills, which seemed interesting and hopefully worth a visit.

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.

Solar Tour 2008 – Day 8: In the morning we were reminded of one of the most negative aspects of being in the French countryside: hunting. Regularly we heard shooting in the distance and when we drove through the village of Barles, we saw 5 murdered wild pigs piled up in front a house. It does not come as a surprise, that one hardly ever sees wild animals in France, not even in thinly populated areas like these. Since our dog Jill is afraid of shooting, this also prevented us from taking longer walks. Hunting season in France starts in September and ends on 31 January for most species. A problem especially in southern Europe is the Illegal hunting of birds. Click here to learn more about it.

Solar Tour 2008 – Day 7: In Seyne-les-Alpes we found a campground for the night but the drive there was also interesting. From Espinasses, the D900C was going to Selonnet. At some point point the French street system must have run out of numbers. Within a couple of days we have been on the D900, D900A, D900B and D900C. All except for the D900C are fairly good roads, but the D900C is narrow, bumpy and sometimes dangerous. In return one gets to see some great landscapes like the Gorges de la Blanche, a canyon cut into the rocks by just a small river. The same river also gave the name to our campground Camping de la Blanche, where we were welcomed by a friendly owner and had free internet access to upload some of our images to Flickr.