Thursday 13th June – after another long driving day yesterday, (all the way down to Provence-Haut-Alpes in SE France), we thought we should take a break today. So ended up driving around for several more hours enjoying the scenery – at least this time without a caravan veering dangerously behind us on tiny zig-zag roads, its brakes over-heating in a potentially expensive way (still tbc – local mechanic reckons they should be fine now they’ve cooled down, but this guidance followed the approved gallic professional standard of looking at a photo for 2 seconds and shrugging, rather than actually examining the vehicle, so … “Bof…”).
Today we chose to follow the Route des Crêtes, which looks over what is reputedly Europe’s deepest canyon, the Verdon Gorge. And I have to say – it’s stunning.

There are several lookout points along the road where you can view the canyon – up to 700m below the road at its highest point.


But a pretty spectacular bird –

The Griffin Vulture , re-introduced to the area 20 + years back, and now thriving ( farmers’ use of poisons , plus requirement to remove animal carcasses, wiped them out mid-20th century). We stood and watched these for HOURS – more pics are on the general Wildlife page – I took over 100, of which four were worth keeping 😦.
Keep calm and carrion, in fact …

wow – spectacular!
Ellie will be in Nice from Sunday onwards, if you’re still down that way.
Ooh, what’s she doing there ? It’s a bit of a drive from here but you never know….
Last stop on her interrail trip. A relaxing couple of days. They arrived this evening. Boat trip and snorkelling tomorrow, other stuff on Tuesday, then the long haul back to Brighton on Wednesday.
stunning pics and blue sky too!
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