Provence Blog by ProvenceBeyond

Chartreuse and Tree Strawberries in the Maures

We had a good 7-hour loop hike yesterday in the Maures forest, beginning at the edge of Collobrieres (in the Var department). Thickly forested hills, not as steep as the Alpes, but we still did over 900 m vertical.

The loop took us through woods of cork oak, chestnut and even the small cedar forest of Ragusse.

The highlight was a short visit (external only) of the Chartreuse de la Verne, an impressive 12th-century  Carthusian-order monastery – now an active monastery of the Congregration of Bethlehem. Visits inside the monastery are allowed.

We got the verticality of our hike by dropping down from the altitude of the Chartreuse (450 m) to the artificial lake of Verne (80 m) and the return hike up over the Sommet du Péra (521 m) on the return leg. The lake is very long and narrow, zig-zagging roughly southeast down the valley. The level of the lake was low, but the deep blue water was still lovely.

Apart from the ubiquitous cork oak and chestnut trees, the most common plant we saw, all day long, was the strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo). These were everywhere, with white blossoms and red, ripe, round "strawberry" fruits, many already dropped and littering the trails. The ripe fruit is good to eat (good being a relative term). We've sampled them from time to time and they're alright – at least we wouldn't have starved if lost in the woods.

Mercantour Raspberries in 10 hours

We did a nice day hike yesterday in the Mercantour, with 10 hours hiking and nearly 1600 m vertical, and obtained a handful of delicious wild rasberries. There were fields of wild raspberries on the mountain sides, but there's always too much trail and not enough time.
Starting at the Salese Parking area, northwest of Saint-Martin-Vésubie, the trail is barely light at 7 AM, and at 9-degrees C, much fresher than the coast. It's an hour's hike up to the Col de Salese on the GR52, where there's a multitude of hiking choices.
This day we took the trail that goes up to the Col de Mercière, overlooking the Isola 2000 ski station. On the first half of this 3-hour section of the trail we often see several chamois on the mountain sides. On this Saturday hike, with the occasional shepherd's jeep already out there, and the rare early-morning weekend hiker, we saw only one lovely chamois bounding through the woods.
About an hour out past the Col de Salese there's a nice view down onto a lower valley were a track goes past the hamlet of Mollières (2nd photo).  There's another nice loop hike that takes you along that valley.
An hour and a half out from the Col de Salese our trail crosses the tiny but beautiful little Tavels river (3rd photo). We've previously hiked out to this spot just to spend a couple of hours of leisurely picnic lunching. Today, though, we've another hour and a half up the trail to the Col Mercière.

 The last part of the trail up to the Col Mercière zigzags up mostly treeless, grassy slopes. The views are great, with the only signs of civilization a few concrete pillboxes nestled into the rocky slopes. The ones in our (4th photo) are directly beside the Col Mercière.

Instead of a simple return trip back down the trail, we elected for a little track southeast along the side of the cliffs (5th photo), aiming for the Lac de Tavels. Somewhat of an adventure in that the line of cairns through the rocks gave out (at least to us) and we ended up clambering across large rocky areas and up very steep slopes through the trees before finally finding our remote little lake (1st photo).
We took well-earned lunch break at the side of the lake, completely alone except for four rock climbers on the vertical cliffs high above the lake. Another group of four English-speaking hikers arrived just as we were leaving.
From the Lac de Tavels we followed a small but reasonably-well-marked track southwest, back down to the main trail we had hiked up earlier in the day.
On our return trip, past we passed a shepherd rearranging the stones in the road, beneath where water runs constantly; he said it's up to him to keep the jeep-track in repair because he's the one who uses it. We later stopped to discuss navigation with a couple trying to find the tiny Lac Scluos. Our map was better than theirs but after a bit of exploration we determined that both maps exaggerated by showing a "trail".
Back "down" the return trail includes some uphill stretches, including the final bit up to the Col de Salese, then the last hour down hill with less-than-happy leg muscles to arrive at the parking area a good 10 hours after our departure.

 

Gorges du Loup High Trails, Low Planes

A beautifully sunny pre-spring day in the Alpes-Maritimes yesterday. We hiked from the village of Courmes (overlooking the Gorges du Loup) up over the side of the mountain to the plains above (about 1000 m) to visit the Champs des Idols (aka Village Negre) and return via Saint Barnabé on the GR51 trail.
    The peaceful mountain hike was disturbed somewhat by the sound of a pair of "Tracker" anti-forest-fire aircraft doing some very-low-level training in the hills around us. On a few occassions one of them would fly down the valley and pass very low through the Gorges du Loup; quite spectacular to see from our perche above them.
The chapel at Saint Barnabé was "protected" by the cat seen in our second photo here. A small dog followed us into the village, until this cat appeared. Hardly afraid of dogs, the rather small cat did some mock attacks on the dog, until the bewildered canine finally quit the field of battle.
    A good 5-hour hike with great scenery, good trails, a sore knee and tired legs at the end.

Uphill from Menton to Eagles

Last week we got an early-season start to our planned GR51 hike across the South of France. Starting at the Menton-Garavan railway station, just east of central Menton, we hiked the GR52 trail up the side of the mountain for two hours from the station (20 m altitude) to Plan du Lion (720 m) and the beginning of the GR 51 trail.

A pair of golden eagles were hunting the valley to the west of us for most of the time we trudged upward, sometimes below our level and sometimes much higher. At the top we got a long-distance shot of one of them high above.

Hiking Vésubie Valley Cros d'Utelle

We took a day yesterday to do some serious field research work for Beyond. The hamlet of Cros d'Utelle is just into the Vésubie Valley, less than an hour's drive from Nice and the last of the summer crowds on the Cote d'Azur beaches.

The lower end of the Gorges de la Vésubie and the valley open into the Var river at Plan-du-Var, a tiny village about a half-hour inland from the Nice airport. The upper end of the Gorges de la Vésubie and the valley start at St Martin-Vésubie, a mountain town popular as a vacation spot and a center into the hiking mountains of the Mercantour National Park.

A 6-1/2 hour hike shook the computer cobwebs out of our system, and got the leg muscles back into action. A beautiful hike in beautiful mountains.

Still August, and still very few people out there in nature. We passed two pairs of hikers coming the other way along the GR. On the upper part of the hike, we met with three hikers heading up to the Sanctuaire de la Madone d'Utelle on the top of the ridge. It was off our planned loop, but the Beyond team (solo) branched off to the top to see the view before dropping back down to continue the journey. Well worth the effort, of course.

Silent Hiking in the Midi-Pyrénées

We spent a week or two doing day hikes in the Lot department of the Midi-Pyrénées region of France. A hike a day on a well-marked PR (petite randonée trail), in the middle of August in a popular tourist area of France - - and never once met another person along a trail. No other hikers. No other tourists.

The first photo here shows the ancient village church in Lamothe-Cassel, a tiny village only 20 km north of Cahors [map].

Once and a while the trail would emerge from the woods to cross a tiny village or hamlet, and we would be greeted by the occasional local person as we passed. But by and large the beautiful little trails we followed for a few hours each day contained only us.

And the occasional animal life. Usually wild-life, but some times a few horses or a small herd of cattle. Rabbits and hares now and again. Buzzards hunting over isolated fields, often in pairs. Once a buzzard took off from the edge of a vineyard only 10 meters from where we surprised it, departing with a small animal in its talons. And a couple of days ago, a golden eagle fled from a field near us, only 50 meters away, but moving fast and low.

The trails in the Lot department were all very well marked with the ubiquitous yellow bars. So well marked that we really didn't need the excellent route-guides given to us by the Office de Tourisme in Gourdon (Lot), although those guides were doubly useful for  planning a day's outing.

The individual hiking guides we got free from Gourdon (Lot) included a detailed map of the route, along with a description (in French). Even though the map was unnecessary because of the excellent trail markings, we always carry the appropriate IGN map - just-in-case.

In the midst of farmlands and country roads, the PR trails always found ways through isolated woods and beautiful scenery. Trails varied from narrow paths to forestry roads, but those later were seldom paved. The rare paved roads that were used were isolated, traffic-free, and through beautiful parts of nature.

Escarets Lake in the Var

A July Saturday outing took us again to the Var (roughly, between Nice/Cannes [Alpes-Maritimes] and Aix-en-Provence [Bouches-du-Rhone]). The small Escarets Lake (Lac des Escarets) is in the middle of the Var, 8 km southeast of Le Cannet-des-Maures and only 1.5 km southwest of Les Plaines Roman Bridge (that we blogged a few days ago).

This lovely little lake is lost in the middle of nowhere, except a apparently barren nature reserve in the summer heat of the South of France. You can drive in to a corner of the lake, but the whole idea, really, is for a pleasant, and healthy, walk in from the road. Only a half-hour hike across level terraine, but you need plenty of water with you (only "mad dogs and Englishmen", as they say, or Beyond fanatics who take the time they have and the areas accessable in that time).

We saw an exclusive little frog (toad, actually, but that sounds so much more ichy). Reminded us of the regional turtle that's exclusive to this area of the Var, and probably the instigation for the Turtle Village (Village des Tortues) near Gonfoaron, just a few kilometres across the hills to the southwest of here.

We found a couple of the local Crapaud calamite (Bufo calamita) toads, in pools of the small rivers feeding te Escarets Lake from the south. Our photo is a bit grainy, shot at 1600 ASA because the creature was sitting in the water, in a deep cleft of vertical rocks, and nearly black compared to the noonday sun shining at that time.

 We passed another couple who had located a young toad trying to hide under a bush, far from the water. Easier to get into a photogenic position, but we had to move on to our own subject.

This is a non-watersporting lake, no boating (except a light canoe/kayak), no beaches, and definitely no hotdog stands. At one end of the lake, near the dam that created it, there is a bit of beach-style access, and a way to get a car close to the lake, for those of you too lazy to walk.

We'll get a real Beyond site page online for this lovely lake in the near future.