Southern France Part II: natural beauty
Trip dates: February 5, 2017 - February 10, 2017
The Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southern France is absolutely beautiful and I wish we had more time to explore there! We anchored ourselves in Marseille and Antibes and did some day trips from the two cities (see previous post here).
Our first day trip was to the calanques from Marseille. A calanque is a limestone steep-walled inlet, essentially similar to a fjord but found along the Mediterranean and not formed by glaciers.
Getting to the calanques from Marseille was super easy to do - just catch the city bus 21 (or 921) to the university Luminy stop. We hiked to the belvedere of Sugiton for some gorgeous views of the Sugiton and Morgiou calanques. We then tried to hike to Sugiton though we ended up taking the wrong path, so we ended up at another lookout and never actually made it to the water.
The hikes were pretty easy with nice, wide paths and only some gentle inclines. They weren't the most well marked though (seeing as how we ended up on the wrong one) but it's a nice area to just wander so it wasn't a big deal. This site, while in French, provides some good information on how to get there as well as the path routes.
This area was ridiculously gorgeous, so I'll let the photos speak for themselves. We also had a beautiful sunny day with blue skies so that helps too :)
If you're in or near Marseille, definitely check out the calanques! You won't regret it!
One thing to note is that there aren't any facilities in the park. We bought food from Carrefour to bring with us, as well as lots of water. Also, it can get really really windy there (thanks to Le Mistral wind) so we found a somewhat sheltered spot among the rocks to have our picnic lunch. Up on the belvedere especially, it can get kind of crazy. If you read our Tromsø post, it was way windier than that! Standing up at the top of the look out, there would be gusts where we thought that we might get blown a couple feet if we weren't holding on to the railing. If you're wearing a hat, it better be tied on or it'll probably get blown away. I loved every minute of it! Eric coined a new term for these experiences: exhilifying (exhilarating + terrifying).
From Antibes, we did a day trip to the Gorges du Verdon. This gorge is known as the grand canyon of Europe and while it isn't as big as the one in Arizona, it's really steep and beautiful in it's own right. The canyon (and overall park) is really popular with adventure-goers in France, and I really wanted to go canyoning and paragliding here! But alas, the season doesn't start until April since it's too cold before then, so we settled for driving around and doing some short hikes to look out points instead. The weather wasn't very cooperative and it was overcast and drizzly most of the time, a bit of a bummer since the blue-green color of the water wasn't as visible as a result. It's still for sure on my list to return to though!
We rented a car from Antibes to drive up to the gorge. Since neither of us can drive stick, and apparently it was a school holiday, the only automatic rental car that was available was an Audi A7. I'm not a big car person but this vehicle was niiiice! We would have fit right in in Monte Carlo :)
There's a lot of information on the web about driving to the gorge and the various paths you can take but it was a little hard to digest, since a lot of it is in French and there are so many different highway route numbers to keep track of, so I'll recap the route that we took. We very roughly followed this guide but from Antibes and up the Route Napoleon to the south rim. This site, in French, also provides a pretty good overview.
There are two paths along the Gorge du Verdon, the north rim (along D952 or rive droite) and the south rim (along D71 or rive gauche). Coming from Antibes, we followed Route Napoleon to the south rim, which took us by Pont de l'Artuby bridge. After several pit stops for pictures, we made our way to Aiguines where we had a packed lunch overlooking Lac de Ste Croix. We then headed north up to the tiny town of Moustiers-Ste-Marie. This town is built into the side of a limestone cliff and is apparently considered one of the most beautiful villages of France. It was super small and cute, but I bet it's really crowded and packed in peak season. We made our way up to the Chapel Notre-Dame de Beauvoir, which sits at the top of the hill overlooking the village, before departing Moustiers.
From Moustiers, we headed south a bit until we hit D952 and then followed the route along the north rim of the gorge. At La Palud-sur-Verdon, we diverted off D952 to hit the Route des Crêtes. This is a circular route that offers some dramatic views of the canyon, and is considered scary by some since the road is very narrow and there isn't always a boundary between you and the cliff. We had wanted to do the whole route but the road was only open for 7km due to weather. As we headed up and up, we soon realized why - it was snowing! We ended up having to turn around but we got some great view points in, as well as some more exhilifying moments for Eric; I guess view points with icy steps overlooking a steep drop-off shrouded in mist isn't everyone's idea of safe and fun ;)
After leaving the Route des Crêtes, we returned to the north rim to head back down south to Antibes. We hit one final stop along the way at Point Sublime before concluding our day trip.
The pictures really don't do this place justice, so you'll have to go check out the magnificent dramatic cliff drops for yourself.
Some panoramic views along the way:
Views from Point Sublime:
Between the calanques and the Gorge du Verdon, I'm completely sold on southern France. And that was only two days in the area! I can't wait to go back and explore more.
Extra bonus content for making it this far: we ran into a sheep herd along the way, brief entertainment ensued.
