The European grand canyon

Travel date: August 2002. Report date: December 2002. Select a part of the journey by clicking the map or the desired yellow dot in the index below.
	Global description
	Verdon area, one day trip (by car)
	Moustiers S.te Marie: village visit and walk (on foot)
	The right side of the canyon up to La Palud and the Routes des Cretes (by car)
	St. Maurin waterfalls (on foot)
	The left side and the upper right side of the canyon (by car)
	Walk to Tusset bridge (on foot)
	Quinson and its pre-history museum (by car)
	Conclusion

It is our first camping vacation since Tommi was born, so we choose something not too difficult, S.te Croix artificial lake, at the end of Verdon canyon, in Provence (southern France). We are planning to spend there about one week, starting from Monday 5^th August. It is the largest European canyon, being dug by Verdon river along past milleniums in a hard sedimental rocky plateau.

As far as we are concerned, it is not our very first camping experience since Tommaso was born, we have already been one week at the sea with him by the end of June, but that time we stayed in a highly comfortable mobile home, resting and doing nothing else, while now we will stay in a tent and we are going to have a more dynamic vacation, at least as much as we can, according to his needs. By the way, poor baby, he is only six months old !!

Though the shortest way is the coastal one, via Genova, Ventimiglia, Nice, Drauguignan and the Napoleon Route, in order to avoid traffic jams along Liguria highways, I prefer the Alp journey, via Torino, Monginevro pass, Briancon, Sisteron, Oraison. Most of it includes ordinary roads, instead of highways, mostly on the French side,anyway we find few traffic and reach S.te Croix lake quite easily.

We soon have a bad surprise when we keep searching a camping place. We drive hence and forth for over 70 km and three hours and finally, in the late afternoon, we find a place, far from the canyon and from the lake, in Montdeniér area, near a place named Venascle, not far (12 km, 4 of them on a dusty road...) from the characteristic village of Moustiers S.te Marie.

It is a very quiet camping place in the countryside, surrounded by lavender fields, whose owner live nearby in a great farm. There isn´t either a market or a bar, and even the electrical connection is quite adventurous (a 40 m extension cable), anyway, the place is wonderful, and at night even more, since there aren´&t almost any light sources, and it is great to watch the stars in the sky.

Verdon river sources from the French side of the Alps and follows, approximately, NE - SW direction until it reaches Durance river and finally Mediterranean sea. Along its flowing, it encounters five dams, generating five artificial lakes. Among these, S.te Croix is the third from the source and the widest and is located at the canyon exit.

Verdon canyon is about thirty kilometres long and is sided for most of its length by two scenic roads, one on each side, that are on top of the plateau and have a lot of places where it is possible to stop and have beautiful sight of the deep abyss below.

Though we have been staying here one week, it is also possible to visit the whole area in only one day, by following a round journey. The easiest way, in this case, is to arrive from Draguignan via the Napoleon Route.

The road to reach the canyon is the D71, near the big Artuby bridge and the Mescla balconies, where it is possible to watch the joining of Artuby water into Verdon river. This stop is a must in the journey, and there is also a lot of place for parking vehicles.

The road continues to Aiguines, with the canyon on its right side. A lot of view points on the road side let people stop and look down to the bottom of the canyon. After about ten kilometres the road stops bordering the edge of the canyon, and gets to Aiguines, from where S.te Croix lake is now visible.

The road reaches the lake and goes on to Moustiers S.te Marie and La Palud sur Verdon. While driving near the lake shore, one arrives to the spectacular Galetas bridge, that crosses the last meters of Verdon river before entering the lake. It is really hard not to stop and look at the enourmous cliffs that mark the exit of the canyon.

Driving on, one finds a junction: straights on to Moustiers, right to La Palud and the right side of the canyon (D952). If you want to visit Moustiers S.te Marie, it is your last chance: now or never!! Otherwise, the roads gets climbing with sharp turns up to the entrance of the canyon itself, that is now on the right side of the road. The very first kilometres are extremely scenic, up to Mayreste view point, and then gets far and far from the canyon. It seems that the natural show has ended, but it is not true at all. Actually, just one kilometer after the slow queue at La Palud traffic light, there is the beginning of the wonderful round journey named Route des Cretes (D23), that I´m going to describe in details further in this page.

Starting from La Palud, again towards Castellane and out of sight from the canyon, one gets to the last and maybe the most significant view point at all: Point Sublime. Similarly to other points, a lot of parking place is available, and at least a quarter of an hour on foot is needed to reach the view point, but it is definitely worth doing. Because of a bend in the river, one finds himself straight in front of the so called Ramson corridor, that is exactly in front of the huge cliffs that are the entrance of the canyon.

Driving on, the last thing is to end the round trip by crossin again the Verdon, as soon as possible, in order to get on the left side again and join the road to Compts sur Artuby and Draguignan. The way to do so is driving along the D952 road towards Castellane, along the river shore, then crossing it near the ancient Carajuan bridge. Then on towards Trigance along the D955, turning then on D90, passing over Trigance and finally reaching D71 road, turning left towards Compts sur Artuby and Draguignan.

On Tuesday August 6^th, the morning flows quietly while setting up the camp and avoiding some sudden rain showers, anyway we get finally ready and spend the afternoon visiting the characteristic middle age village of Moustiers S.te Marie.

Such a bad idea !! In spite of its wide car parking place (I´d say some hundreds places), we remain bottlenecked on the road to the car park itself, and we spend half an hour in exiting.

We drive on to Les Salles sur Verdon, only a small group of houses on the lake S.te Croix shore. Moreover, it is desperately modern, in so far that this village has been completely rebuilt when the ancient one got covered by the lake water when the reservoir got filling. Anyway, we find there what we were looking for: a tourist office where to get some maps of the footpaths here around (some scan will be available soon on these pages).

On Wednesday August 7^th we try to visit Moustiers again, and this time we spend there about two hours. Moustiers is an old, middle age village that lies on the side of a rocky cliff. Its porcelain are very famous, but it is famous as well for a big star hanged above a narrow canyon between two cliffs by means of a huge iron chain. The origin of such a strange monument is not exactly known, but it is commonly believed that it is an ex-voto of a crusade knight who wanted to thank God for his coming back alive from being jailed in Jerusalem. Whatever the origin, this hanging star is one of the most characteristic actraction of Moustiers S.te Marie. Our visit consists of short walk around in the village, including a look to the old, XIV century Romanesque church, with its belltower standing high among the house roofs.

The day after, Thursday, we plan to have a short walk to Notre Dame de Beauvoir chapel, in the highest part of the narrow canyon, just below the hanging iron star. The climb is short but quite steep, takes us along a via crucis up to a small esplanade in front of the little church.

While getting back, we choose a footpath that, instead of taking us directly back to the village, continues high under the cliff, sometimes steeply descending, down to the remaining of the old, middle age city walls. Past the small city gate, we go to Riou waterfall, but it is quite empty, almost without water at all, so we go on along a plain footpath among olive trees that finally takes us down to the lowest part of the village. That´s all, we only have to climb the whole village up to the car park, in the highest part of the village itself. It has been our first walk while carrying Tommi on my shoulders, less then two hours, and has been quite positive for Tommi himself, and quite nagative as far as the child-backpack is concerned, really a terrible object for me.

A little remark: we have choosen a low profile walk, but in the surroundings of Moustiers there are a lot of other footpaths, even much longer and more difficult, like, for instance, the one that takes the walkers to the top of one of the cliffs where the chain is fixed.

We spend the remaining of Wednesday in a car tour on the right side of the canyon, that is undoubtely more scenic. It is a kind of deja vu, that is we are going to repeat part of the same journey we have already had in ´96, but we know it will be worth.

A little past Moustiers S.te Marie, the road keeps climbing with steep turns heading to La Palud sur Verdon and suddenly enters the canyon giving a scenic view all around. Some more kilometres and we stop in order to have lunch near Mayreste view point, where there is the first hairpin after entering the canyon.

In this area it is again quite easy to park cars, on the other side careful is required while walking to the view point. It is about ten minutes far from the road, but the footpath is in fact slippery limestone, sometimes steep, and proper boots are required. Fortunately, we are well equipped, but I´ve seen some tourists wearing beach shoes, risking to hurt their ankles... Finally, the view point is only a jutting cliff, without either a baluster or a parapet, and so, for one´s own safety, it is necessary to be very careful, especially for people who suffer from vertigo, like me...

In the early afternoon we are again on the road to La Palud, where we will make the Route des Cretes journey (crests road, D23). It is a round journey, about 15 kilometres, that takes to the highest and most scenic view places in the whole area.

In order to avoid traffic jams, this road is one-way in its narrowest part, so if you want to make the whole round journey, it is necessary to take it the right way and follow the road signs. When arriving from Moustiers, this means to crossover the slow traffic light at La Palud cross roads (bear in mind that it may take from ten minutes up to half an hour... ) and then straight on to Castellane. About one kilometre past exiting La Palud, on the right side there is the beginning of the Route des Cretes.

This road is very important for cliff climbers because its very first hairpins face directly on the terrible Escalés cliff. It is a 300 m high, straight limestone cliff that summons climbers from the whole Europe. All these crazy guys find it very comfortable to secure their ropes to the view point balausters and then get down in the void along the cliff. On along the road, we arrive to the crest, facing the canyon from the highest point, and then downhill (one-way from this point) still facing the canyon, with several hairpins and a lot of scenic view points, down to La Maline hostel (end of one-way section). Past the hostel, the road continues along Mainmorte ravine and finally gets back to La Palud, again queueing at the critic cross roads previously mentioned.

It is worth mentioning that the one-way section doesn´t prevent to reach La Maline hostel from the shortest way, that is directly from La Palud without covering the whole Route des Cretes, and the reason is that it is the starting point, or eventually the ending point, of the most famous footpath in the canyon: the Martel trail.

This footpath is quite hard, is about 14 km long and takes down to the bottom of the canyon from La Maline hostel to the Ramson corridor. The requested time spans from 6 to 8 hours and wouldn´t be affordable now while carrying on my shoulders a 6 months baby, but in future, maybe, who knows ...

After ending the Route des Cretes journey, our day is going to finish and we get back to our camp site by crossing Venascle plateau directly from La Palud. The road we find on our map is actually a gravel one, sometimes hard for our car, but allows us to cross a completely savage area, between pine woods, old tracks and wonderfully colored lavender fields.

On Friday 9 we finally succeed in having a walk inside the canyon: St. Maurin waterfalls. The footpath starts from the Verdon right side road, D952, about one kilometre past entering the canyon, just near the roadkeeper´s house (the only one along this road). The parking place is not too much, about ten cars, but we are lucky and find easily a place.

Two are St. Maurin waterfalls.The upper one is above the road, completely out of sight from the road itself, while the lower one is quite below, not far from Verdon riverside. For the morning, we decide to climb up to the upper waterfall. The footpath is very steep, vith several different ways. Nominally, the area above the road would be a restricted area, something like a natural resersve, but we ignore it and go on.

After ten minutes, we arrive to a kind of small plateau, marked by a huge, lonely oak tree, and some step past, we find a wet area, with a lot of little water brooks. Following backward the water, we keep climbing the mountain, crossing an old walnut wood, until finally we find the waterfall we were looking for.

It is quite low in water because of the season, but the water jump is anyway spectacular. While gettign back down the footpath, we argue that we hadn´t taken the right way, which was just right of the big oak in the middle of the small plateau. No matter...

In the afternoon, we decide to reach the other waterfall, that is the lower one, along the so called fisherman´s footpath. In this case, the path seems to be clearly marked, although very steep in the beginning, as one can easily see from on the road. This footpath takes us to the lower plateau just in a while, then again a steep footpath to overcome a little cliff and finally here we are quite near to Verdon riverside.

This is the last part of the canyon and is named St. Maurin water way because the lake water enters deeply into the canyon and makes this part of the Verdon easily navigable. Because of this reason, it is usually crowded by lots of pedal boats, electric motorboat, canoes, rubber dinghies and whatever can float on a smooth water surface.

We finally reach the lower waterfall. In comparison to the upper one, the water jump is is much smaller, mainly it is water flowing and dropping on the mossy rocks, anyway it is an extremely relaxing place, even magic I´d say, completely surrounded by trees and almost hidden by bushes.

Unfortunately our timetable doesn´ let us go on down to the riverside, so we get climbing up again to the road, take the car and get back to our camp site

We have a quit abitious goal for Saturday 10: we´d like to trek from the right side of the river, in the park place at the end of ramson corridor, reach the Verdon, cross it at Tusset bridge and, from here, reach Rancoumas view point, about 500 m higher, just in front of the wonderfully terrifying Escalès cliffs.

Unfortunately we find bad weather, the sky is quite cloudy and we have to choose our second alternative, that is a car tour on the canyon left side road, again a tour we have alredy had in 1996, but no matter...

We pass over Moustiers, go on along D957 road, overpass Galetas bridge and, a few past, leave the lakeshore and follow D71 road, that climbs the mountain with sharp hairpins, taking us directly inside the clouds, in so far that we can´t see anything more. But we are lucky, past some kilometres and finally succeeed in watching the landscape again.

We can´ trek so much, so my little consolation is watching the footpaths in the bottom of the canyon from the viewpoints on the road. One example is the Bastidon footpath, again quite famous, altough less then the Martel one. It starts from Mayreste view point and gets down to Mainmorte gravine through eventually dangerous passages on the steep side of the canyon.

Driving on along the road, we overpass the Fayet tunneland finally reach the bridge over the Artuby river. A little past the road leaves definitely the Verdon area. Since, in the meantime, the weather has got better and better, we decide to resume our firts plan and go to Tusset bridge, on order to trek anyway, even for a shorter while.

We take backward the journey I have previously described (Verdon area, one day trip) and leave D71 road at the junction to Trigance. The steep downhill D90 road takes us to this little village, that is said to be middle aged but actually has nothing particular. We turn on D955 road heading Castellane and La Palud, then after a while we overpass the Verdon, go back to the right side and join again D952 road. At the junction we get left (direction La Palud, on the right the road woult go to Castellane along the Verdon right side) and finally we keep driving along the Verdon river again.

In this area, the river has´t been forced yet to dig its bed into a hard limestone plateau and so flows quietly along in a wide valley, with a lot of small beaches full of tourists everywhere. Among these, we note the ones near the old Carajuan bridge, an old two arcade stone bridge that stands near the confluence of Jabron river into the Verdon and is often used as a refernce point for several fotpaths in this area.

Along D952 road, within a few kilometres the landscape becomes sharp again, the road stops facing the riverside and keeps climbing the mountain, overpasses a short but very narrow tunnel (traffic light regulated, it might need a long wait) and, immediately on exit, finds a left junction that takes down along D23B road to the Verdon and the car park located just near the exit of the Ramson corridor.

This is tha real canyon gate, a group of high and huge cliffs that is on of the topic points of this area. The exit of Ramson corridor is actually the ending point, or eventually the starting one, of the Martel footpath, which opposite is the Malines hostel, on the Route des Cretes D23. here, as well as near Malines hostel, we finfd a lot of cars parked along the road, many more then the parking capacity.

We are lucky because the beginning of the footpath to Tusset bridge is far from the car park, it is enough to stop near Cauvin camping.

At the beginning, the footpath is marked with yellow marks, then becomes confused in the wood, but following the generic direction we finally find it again. In about twenty minutes we get to Verdon riverside and see Tusset bridge. It is a stone, hump bridge, with one only arcade, that was build in old middle age and has been for a long time an important and comfortable way to cross the river.

Our walk ends here, with a long stop on the river side, regreting not to hawe taken our swim suits. In fact, even with the low water flow of this season, near the bridge the river makes a loop where the water is over two meters deep, where it is possible to swim and even to plunge. Actually it doesn´t seem warm at all, but we see that it is not cold enough to prevent a group of children to plunge and swim again and again for over one hour...

Anyway, it is really a kind place, not only for the Verdon river, whoso color here is really emerald green (keep in mind that in French Verdon sounds similar to green), but also for the huge clifs that mark the entrance of Ransom corridor not far from here.

It is quite astonishing to see these cliffs, some hundreds meters high, almost from their base, but is astonishing as well to think that the footpath we have left continues, after Tusset bridge, and just in a while gets up uver 400 meters higher in order to reach Rancoumas view point, just in front of those cliffs, but with 400 meters void between !!! What a pity we hadn´t succeeded in making the whole trek, even though it must be remarked that, according to our footpath guide, such a view point is not suitable for people suffering from vertigo.

On our way back to the camp site, after having taken again D952 road to La Palud, we stop for a while at the Point Sublime, maybe the most scenic view point, just in front of the entrance of Ramson corridor, but much higher then the car park previously mentioned, from where it is possible to watch the river entering between the rocky walls of the canyon.

Sunday 11 is our last day here, we´d like to have one last walk, but unfortunately the weather is very cloudy, also with a quite cold wind, and we have to make a different choice. We go to Quinson, about 50 km downstream along the Verdon. We decide to spend half a day here where, in 2001, a new pre-historical museum has been opened.

It is a modern museum, sometimes too modern, I´d say, with a lot of videos, many dioramas and a lot of findings coming from diggings in this area. Moreover, it is worth noting that earphones for a guided tour in one´s own language are available for free.

The historical journey starts from the early, very rough tools of the first hunter and picker peoples up to the civilization that followed from Roman conquest. At the same time, mainly as far the most ancient historical periods are concerned, also the geological transformations that have involved the Provence area are widely described, with a particular attention to their impact on the inhabitants life attitudes.

Well, this museum can be an quite interesting variation, but surely it not a good idea to skip a walk in the canyon or a relaxing day on the lakeshore to drive 50 km and come visiting it. On the other side, in spite of my partly negative consideration, it seems that a lot of people come here to see this museum. Actually, either because of the bad weather or the holyday, at the moment when we got out, it was about 15.30, the queue at the entrance was about half an hour.

For natural scenery lovers, it is an unmissable place. For trekkers, a net of footpaths for any difficulty level. For extreme sport fans, obviously, it is The Place: rafting, canyoning, gliding and any kind of sport climbing. For lazy people, a wonderful lake where relaxing and doing nothing else.

Well, it is definitely difficult to find a reason not to go there. Since we have already been there, it is even more difficult not to go again, anyway, it can be better not to choose August.