To Castellane: Traversing the Grand Canyon of the Verdon

June 6, 2015

Flash! Boom! Rumble! Crash!

About two miles or so before Castellane, the skies start seriously darkening ahead of us. As we enter the town the winds pick up significantly, blowing things over on the sidewalks, and people are scurrying to pull down awnings and move things inside. Within five minutes of checking in to our room, all hell breaks loose in the skies. Soon there's serious thunder and lightning by, and soon it starts raining in town. Within about two minutes, it's pouring! And then hailing! Ten minutes later, it has moved on.

There can't be many more satisfying experiences than reaching shelter minutes before the deluge arrives. Lucky this time!

Leading up to this, we experienced what must be one of the most spectacular roads in Europe, along the north bank of the Verdon River as it cuts though the amazingly deep, sheer sided gorge referred to at the Grand Canyon of the Verdon. We rode through the canyon years ago, on the south bank, and we're awestruck by it. The south road is the busier side, with a wider two lane road well protected by guardrails - but still so narrow and twisted that it's common to see tour busses jammed up and reversing back out of hairpin turns.

The north side feels considerably wilder though - a narrower, unstriped road, generally without guardrails, beneath and above sheer cliffs. It's much quieter too - there are no busses and not many cars coming through, and they're moving slowly, stopping at every scenic turnoff. The predominant traffic comes from motorcycles. On our bikes we can stop anywhere, and today we stopped constantly - this was our slowest day of the tour so far. We were on the road for over 7 hours but covered just over forty miles. There is something remarkable to stop and stare at or photograph around every bend in the road.

At La Palud we left the main route for the even more dramatic Route des Cretes, which hugs the lip of the canyon and climbs steeply for a few thousand feet, eventually topping out high above the river and offering huge views eastward and precipitously straight down into the canyon. It is really amazing how steep some of these cliffsides are, dropping vertically for what must be over 2000'; and how tight the canyon is. In spots the two lips almost seem to touch at the top, and there are few spots where any of the river far below is visible at all.

At the highest point, the cliffs are covered with rock climbing parties. It's quite unnerving watching them back off the cliff and start rappelling down, with the bottom of the cliff invisible below. It is also thrilling to look out and down at the huge griffon vultures soaring beneath the canyon walls. They are here as the result of a reintroduction program - after being locally extinct for a century, they were reintroduced in 1999 and are now thriving.

From the top, we finally made some better time as we dropped 2000' back to the main road and then turned east toward Castellane, whipping downriver through the swallowing but still beautiful gorge. And, it's a good thing we made good time - 10 minutes later, and we would have pulled in completely drenched.

Here's the video of the final descent.

In the Gorges du Verdon, near Sainte Croix Lake where the river is still navigable by small boaters. It was amazing how quiet this section was - we could hear the voices of the boaters on the river far below.

At what we thought was the high point to an easy day

Typical scenery from the Route des Cretes - the two walls of the gorge almost touch, with the river 2000' below.

The road along the south bank of the gorge tunnels through the face of the opposing cliff.

Lots to stare at in amazement down there - rock climbers rappelling down the sheer walls, huge griffon vultures soaring below, or the incredibly steep cliffs dropping straight down to the river 2000' below.

Dropping down from the heights of Route des Cretes

Some of the cliff faces are amazingly sheer, dropping vertically 2000' to the river.

The view east from the heights of Route des Cretes

Some of the massively wrinkled limestone walls of the canyon.

Today's ride: 42 miles (68 km)
Total: 637 miles (1,025 km)

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