Last night we fell asleep while listening to an open mike jazz session at the small bar kitty corner to our place. So often in France the music is frankly, awful as they sing songs in english from bygone eras. But last night was another story. It was not too loud and it was a pleasure to listen to every performer. In the morning, we paid a brief visit to the Saturday market as we exited the town. How I wish I could have made some purchases and prepared a meal with the top quality offerings at the market.
Our plan was to ride the south bank of the Canyon of the Verdon this morning. It is the largest, deepest canyon in Europe. We are following Scott and Rachel Anderson's route however today is a deviation. The destination today was to be La Bastide, simply because all of the accommodation in the vicinity of Castellane appears to be fully booked. The highlight of the ride today is the canyon and this looked to be a reasonable route and distance at about 66k.
The Canyon du Verdon. I photographed the map for quick access en route.
The temperature this morning was ideal at about 18 degrees as we set off to the Lac de St. Croix. It's an emerald green lake/reservoir fed by the Verdon river as it exits the gorge. In summer this area must be a gong show as there are campsites galore which are deserted for now. Kayaking and pedalos are super popular around rivers and lakes here in France. We could see them neatly lined up along the shore of the lake just waiting for the hordes to arrive. Our first climb began at the lake shore and took us to Aiguines, a small village that was also awaiting the hordes of tourists. We are thankful to be here while it is so tranquille. Bus tours bring the tourists here from the cote d'Azur but the roads and villages are tiny, it must be sardine city in the height of summer.
As we continued to climb out of Aiguines we noticed a sign for a wood turning school. Lo and behold, it's a school where one of David's woodturning friends had attended. We turned in and found a class of students being taught by Jacques Vesery. They gave us a tour of the school and we saw the gorgeous embellished turnings that everyone had made in the past week. Jacques posed for a pic with David and we bid our au revoirs.
We were on cloud 9 for a few minutes afterward and during that time we made a wrong turn that ended up costing us 16 km (8k downhill and 8k uphill) and one hour of our time. At one point a little lamb scampered out of the bushes, ran across the road and jumped up on the stone barrier wall, then quickly got scared and scooted back into the bushes calling for his mommy. We carried on upwards towards the canyon. It was a long climb and the views became more impressive as we pressed on, ever higher it seemed. We stopped often to take photos.
One of the numerous twists in the road today. This was a spacious one but with that, a bus just made the turn with inches to spare.
Eventually, we came to the end of the canyon and exited with yet another climb into an adjacent valley. We pulled up to watch three Pyrenean dogs driving a large herd of about 100 sheep through the valley. They obviously have a special connection to the sheep and had been given total care of the herd. It was fascinating and lovely to see.
The Pyrenean dogs had this crowd under control. The sounds of all the baby lambs was so sweet.
Soon after that the road levelled out somewhat and the clouds that had been gathering decided it was time to drop their load. The thunder and lightening signalled a tough ending for the day of climbing, 2100 meters in total. We pushed on though driving rain for 20km, climbing once again until we reached our chambre d'hote. Both of us were relieved to be here. Inside the house, a wood fire was burning in the large woodstove. We quickly peeled off our wet clothes, showered and settled in with the other travellers for a 3 course dinner, doing our best to bridge the Italian, French and English. We were sure to sleep well tonight.
Today's ride: 87 km (54 miles) Total: 624 km (388 miles)
