The long and winding road
I fell in love with France at a very young age. Every year, my parents and I would travel the country with our little caravan, visiting historical sites and admiring magnificent landscapes. And, as I explained in "Preface", some places can leave such a deep impression on you, they can touch your soul so profoundly, that a little piece of your heart is left behind there. One of the places is the Gorges du Verdon, a national park in the south of France that hosts an awe-inspiring river canyon. So when I talked about this jewel of unspoilt nature, my German squad was immediately up for a roadtrip through the long and winding roads of the Gorges du Verdon. And I knew they would not be disappointed...
The Gorges is a 25 kilometre-long canyon where, at certain points about 700 meters below, a sky-blue river gracefully flows down towards the breathtaking Lac de Sainte-Croix, only to continue its journey through the steep and narrow limestone cliffs, passing by historical villages such as Castellane or Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. But trying to put down in words this incredible natural phenomenon is useless, because no words can describe the feeling you experience when standing on the edge of what seems to be the end of the world. And it's ironic how, by going there to disconnect from the world, you feel more connected to it than ever. |
| The long and winding road... |
Of course, I'm not the only person who knows the Gorges. During summer, its narrow roads are packed with tourists in big luxury RVs and hurdles of avid mountainbikers who slow down the speed limit to 5 km/h. So unless you want to spend your day in a traffic jam, don't go there in summer (for traffic jams you might as well go to Belgium). Luckily, it was the end of September, and to our great pleasure, the road was all ours!
But first, we had to hit the road. And for that, we needed a car (or two). It turned out to be slightly more difficult than expected, and we might have experienced some complications with the rental car at the end of our trip, but our magnificent tour guide D., (we miss you, D.!) took care of it all and thankfully, we are left with only great memories!
Except for the part where I was carsick. And then L. was. If there's anything I learned during this trip it's the following equation: German driver X winding mountain roads = two sick Belgians on the backseat of your fancy rental car... So, dear Germans, by all means, we may share the same flag colours, but not the same stomachs. You see, we're just not used to driving as fast as you do. And it's not like we could ever get used to it: we have more kilometres of traffic jams than the maximum distance between the two extremes of our country.... So it's not a surprise that we take our bends a bit slower than you do...
Carsickness set aside, we arrived safe and sound at our first destination: Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, which many consider to be one of the most beautiful villages of France. The tiny village is divided by a small creek that springs somewhere in the immense canyon that casts an ominous shadow over the village. On the other side, however, a vast landscape of sunsoaked, rowling hills stretches out as far as the eye can see.
After lunch, we hit the road again to start our journey in the high canyons. Our first stop: wow! Our second stop: incredible! Our third stop: insane! By the fourth stop, we decided not to stop every 100 metres to get a glimpse of the magnificent landscape, at least not if we wanted to make it to our campsite before midnight. We made a few last stops and by dusk, we arrived in Castellane at our camping.
We were welcomed "façon française" by the owner of the campsite who showed us our three old-school trailers where we were going to spend the night at. We claimed or beds, went grocery shopping and made not-so-homemade spaghetti bolognaise. That same evening, we were joined by some other Germans and that same night, by some random French guys, guitar balads incl. What were those French even doing there? Who knows. Who remembers?
I don't know how we managed to get up relatively early the next morning, but everyone looked fresh and happy for another adventurous day. We drove to a spot where we would hike a well-known trail. At the start of the trail, a big sign indicated walking shoes, a huge bottle of water and a flashlight. The walking shoes and the water, I understood. But the flashlight?
As we walked down the path towards the ice-cold river and continued down the trail, we came across the reason we needed flashlights: ancient mine tunnels. And there was no way around it. Brave and a little crazy maybe, we decided to walk the tunnels without using our flashlights. And we're talking about 800-metre-long ones, so there was no way you could see the end.
To be honest, it was kind of scary: you had absolutely no idea what (or who) was in front of you. But at the same time, it was incredibly thrilling. I instantly had this Lord of the Rings-feeling, and my only hope was not to encounter her, aka the giant hobbit-eating spider. And maybe it was for the best that we didn't switch on our flashlights, because whenever we did, we would notice the hundreds of (less) giant spiders dangling down the tunnel walls... Arm-in-arm, we made it out of the tunnels, back into the daylight, alive and well!
As we walked down the path towards the ice-cold river and continued down the trail, we came across the reason we needed flashlights: ancient mine tunnels. And there was no way around it. Brave and a little crazy maybe, we decided to walk the tunnels without using our flashlights. And we're talking about 800-metre-long ones, so there was no way you could see the end.
To be honest, it was kind of scary: you had absolutely no idea what (or who) was in front of you. But at the same time, it was incredibly thrilling. I instantly had this Lord of the Rings-feeling, and my only hope was not to encounter her, aka the giant hobbit-eating spider. And maybe it was for the best that we didn't switch on our flashlights, because whenever we did, we would notice the hundreds of (less) giant spiders dangling down the tunnel walls... Arm-in-arm, we made it out of the tunnels, back into the daylight, alive and well!
Our next and last activity was without doubt the most exciting one: canoeing on the canyon river! We teamed up in groups of three and paddled our way down the mighty canyon. Another Lord of the Rings-moment, I thought. But just like the Lord of the Rings-trilogy, our roadtrip had to come to an end. As the sun set, we thought it well to get our *** out of those Gorges before it got entirely dark, because in France, they have not yet invented streetlights.
Three hours later than agreed with the car rental company, we arrived in Nice. Woops, we're in trouble... And I still don't know how D. did it, but he somehow talked us out of it. He must have used his Erasmus card...
Gorges, you were absolutely amazing. Thank you, everyone!
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