Today was my last excusion here in France, and what a winner!! While there was a huge amount of driving (thankyou Becky!!) We didn’t really notice it because the roads and scenary are so beautiful and interesting. The last hour of driving on the autoroute was challenging but we knew we were heading back for dinner at our favourite local restaurant so it was worth it!!
We headed north east from Aix to the national park of the Gorge de Verdon, or the grand canyon of provence. It is pretty spectacular. We arrived in Castellane and booked in for our white water rafting after lunch! This is a beautiful little town in the hills with a chapel on a cliff top above the town and lots of small winding streets. Eclair chocolat encore!
We met the group for the rafting and wearing nothing but swimmers and running shoes headed down to the river. Happily they then provided us with extremely attractive wet suits, to the knee and elbow, life jackets and yellow helmets! Sadly, there are no photographs to record this occasion as there was no way to keep them dry.
It was a lovely couple of hours heading down river, the water clear and pale blue tumbling over the rocks and the cliffs towering above us on either side. We had a few exciting rapids, and one of the girls fell overboard at one stage. I’ll never forget our guide yelling instructions in french and then english, “aller avant, forWARD!” sometimes as we were heading straight for rocks. We would of course then hit the rocks and he would cry out, “aaagh aaahh!”. It all added to the excitement of the trip. hee hee
We got out of the raft a couple of times and floated down some of the rapids feet first, it was absolutely lovely in the water although the parts uncovered by wetsuit were soon very cold! Some of the other guides (and there were a number of other boats on the river) carefully dumped their whole crew out of the boat of a couple of occasions. We would pretty much sail past using our oars, not for forward momentum, but to splash whoever we were passing!
After our rafting fun, we headed back to the car and took the more scenic route (the long way around) via the left bank of the Verdon River. The views were amazing, tall cliffs, with the aquamarine blue river far, far below and the roads were narrow, long, and winding. It was worth it!! If the guys from Top Gear haven’t already driven this road, we are planning to recommend it - not for speed, but for the absolute beauty of the scenery.
We headed for Moustiers Sainte Marie, one of my favourite little towns from my last visit in 2006. It is still lovely. There are two mountains/cliffs, overshadowing the little village, with a small church on the hill between them, beautiful. But what makes this town really interesting is that there is a gold star strung up between the cliffs, hanging far above the town. We were lucky to visit in the afternoon light and the little star was shining bright.
Once again this is a town with small, winding streets, lots of little shops, small squares with fountains and happily the occasional creperie! I had un cafe (basically an espresso) and a crepe chocolat which made me feel MUCH better and ready for the remaining hour and a half drive home.
Back to the lovely restaurant, Ma Cuisine in Rognes and some more chocolate mousse with salty caramel sauce, to finish off a wonderful day in Provence!
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