25. HAUTE PROVENCE: VALENSOLE, MOUSTIERS-SAINT-MARIE, LAC DU ST. CROIX, and GORGES DU VERDON

Loading up the car this morning, I saw a cool sight: a huge  Petanque (boule)  tournament going on near our apartment in L’Isle! There must have been 150 guys playing, on at least twenty courts, all wearing orange event T-shirts. We don’t fully understand this game, but it is hugely popular all over France (like horse-shoes, shuffleboard, and bowling all combined)  and can be played anywhere there is a flat unpaved space. 

Petanque tournament, L'Isle

More Petanque guys, L'Isle

After saying good-byes to our nice landlords at the apartment in L’Isle sur la Sorgue, we happily hit the road for new scenery. Lynn got us a room at a Chambre de Hote near Moustiers-Saint-Marie, at one end of France’s Grand Canyon du Verdon (Gorges du Verdon). Reputed to be a cool town; we headed for it.

The topography in south France changes in relatively short distances. We drove two hours, roughly 180 kilometers or less, and ended up in a rustic National forest-type area in an alpine setting. In that short distance, we left the Vaucluse region, and entered the Var and Haute Provence regions. Temperatures dropped, mountains grew more high and sharp-peaked, and roads grew even twister and fun. We kept remembering how driving two hours from our home in Jupiter would just get us to Daytona, with the same old south Florida setting. Vive la Difference.

Valensole sidewalk cafe

Lunch on the road is something you have to plan for; there are no fast food joints or convenience stores along the way. Also, remember almost all eateries close after 2:00 p.m.  We were getting hungry around 12:30, so found a sidewalk cafe in a little uninteresting town called Valensole, about halfway to our destination. GREAT lunch, but always in the French manner: no rush, three courses (salad, main dish, desert and coffee if you want it). You HAVE to relax and not be thinking about fast-eating/get back on the road as quickly as possible…that ain’t the way it’s done here, in our experience. Anyhow our lunch lasted til they closed at 2, but the sidewalk setting was fun with lots of local scenery and people to watch.

We arrived at our Chambre de Hote - it’s a set of rooms attached to the owner’s home, like a B & B. We have a nice room and bath, with breakfast tomorrow and the next morning, and MAYBE WiFi for computer use. Computer hookup is always a crapshoot! We checked in, got our directions to town and sites to see, then headed out.

Lynn checks out B&B room - se bonne

Moustiers-St.Marie is quite the beautiful ancient mountain town. A centuries-old stone church (Chapelle de Dame-de-Beauvoir) is built way up the mountain, with loose stone steps up one way, and a prehistoric-looking stone goat path up the other, if you want to climb up and look. Like an idiot, I found the ancient goat path first, and climbed like a fiend to get to this church, only to find some nice people who weren’t even sweaty strolling around there because they knew to come up the stone stairs from town! 

Moustiers Ste-Marie main street...all uphill..look way up at the church

Hang glider off one of the peaks atop Moustiers

NICE part of  trail to mountain top church  - it got MUCH worse! 

Two stone mountain peaks come close together above the town, with a river tumbling into the town center, over some waterfalls and under beautiful stone-arch bridges. Water fountains and pools are all over town with the river furnishing the water for them. Someone strung a cable between the peaks and hung a big gold star from it. We saw some antique plates illustrating a rope bridge up there a century ago. Of course, the place is full of shops and tourist stuff. The area is famous for “Faience”  - ceramic pottery, I think, so Faience artistes are everywhere and their dishes, plates, and creations are beautiful…and very expensive. We thought this would be a typical one-hour tourist town visit, but found we just scratched the surface in our two hour stay this afternoon.We’ll probably go back tomorrow after exploring the Canyon…Lynn can shop some and I can hike some of the mountain trails leading in and out of Moustiers.

The reason we came is to see the Grand Canyon du Verdon (Gorges du Verdon)… France’s version of our own Grand Canyon. At the base of the canyon is Lac de St. Croix, a huge man-made lake created from a hydroelectric dam across the River Verdon, that supplies most of the electricity for Provence. 

Tonight we checked out the Lake, and couldn’t believe the crystal clear luminous turquoise water. We took some pics around sundown, I hope they show it as pretty as we saw it. Early tomorrow, we hope to drive the famous roads along the upper rim of the canyon. Views are supposed to be spectacular. But, we’ve been warned that on weekends the rim roads are terribly crowded with buses, cars, motorcyclists, and various gawkers (like us). We’ll try it early and see what happens. 

LINK TO all the photos we took so far, if you'd like to see more:

https://picasaweb.google.com/104261232464745572476/ProvencePhotos?authuser=0&feat=directlink