Our hotel in Barcelonette held its breakfast buffet in the bar and it was a beehive of travellers preparing for a day of adventure when we showed up at 8am. We loaded up on everything they offered (fresh hard boiled egg, croissant, bread, butter, confiture, yogurt, cheese, orange juice, coffee, cereal and banana), then headed on our way under sunny skies towards Embrun. The road descended for a long while as it hugged the rushing alpine torrent of the Ubaye River.
The scale of the landscape is growing bigger and grander by the day and we stop regularly to soak in its beauty. We spotted a cycling/walking trail on the opposite side the of the valley that was once a railway and which passes through some very long tunnels. It would have been incredibly cold in the tunnels and naturally, pitch dark. As it was, we passed through two tunnels on our way to the lake. We carry powerful head and tail lights with us for this purpose, a lesson we learned the hard way on a previous trip to France. In a nutshell, we entered a narrow curved unlit tunnel that was about 200m long and we both scared the b'jesus out of ourselves by the time we emerged into the daylight. Now we are always well lit.
Eventually the Ubaye river empties into Lac Serre-Poncon, formed in 1961 by the damming of the Durance River and the submerging of an entire village in the process. We rode to a 1025m summit along the eastern shore where we learned that the damn is the largest hydroelectric facility in France. The lake itself is about 20k long and is a gorgeous alpine aqua colour with many campsite on its shores, all deserted right now. The surrounding mountains rise between 2500 and 2700 metres. We spot the occasional birds of prey enjoying the updrafts and today it was a beautiful red kite. Words really don't adequately describe the beauty of it all. We took lots of photos.
View back to the earth dam that was built between 1955 and 1961.
It was not much further that we passed the north end of the lake and crossed a high bridge over the wild waters of the Durance river as we entered Embrun, our destination for today. Embrun will be a host city for this year's Tour de France.
