There are motorbikes and the bikers make nice social groups, clearly sharing their experiences. They come in all shapes, sizes and genders(?) and there are many different makes of machine.
There’s always awkward moments as a biker finds a space amongst all the others, stops and then has to dismount. No mistakes are allowed, as it would be domino time.
Dominating the town is the huge rock with church and statue (Chapel Notre-Dame du Roc) at the top. That’s a photo taken from a distance. It rises vertically from the town centre and so the view back down is rather good. It’s only a steep 35-40 mins to get up here and apparently 50,000 people do so each year. Mostly though, they seem to sit at cafés down in the town.
We camp at a little site only 10 minutes walk away, which has a familiar mix of German, Dutch and French visitors. We’ve seen little of Britain here but there are English speaking voices in the cafés.
Outside the campsite is an all-in-one waste and clean water service point. These are dotted around France and for a fee you can dispose of your black and grey waters. This one asks for €2 from non-campsite users but unusually it’s open access and so it is an ‘honesty fee’.
We spotted a Defender parked at the side of the road. Madam was on the phone but Monsieur was clearly the guy walking along the road towards it and so I accosted him.
This is a very tidy all GRP conversation of a 110. The body was sporting the website of a specialist in Marseille. It’s quite pricey but a very nice solution for ‘complete living’, with heat, water, waste, shower etc. https://www.psi-azalai.fr/
Now the weather has turned properly settled across the near Alps and so we move a little further east into proper mountains again.
We pass over an HEP dam and substation. The diagram shows the huge vertical drop available as they don’t have just this one, there’s five barrages on the Verdon, each with their own Centrales EDF.
Lunch is a picnic at a little lakeside harbour, accessed down a road that’s signposted ‘impossible for motorhomes’. That’s because it’s only about 2m between a couple of buildings near the bottom.
Entrevaux is a citadel town, perched on an inaccessible hill with the Var river acting as a natural moat.
The campsite Camping du Brec is in a surprising position about 1.5km from the town, also across the river from the main road, at the end of a cul-de-sac.
Here the owners have a campsite with its own private lake. It must drive the locals mad because it’s only for campeurs and that seems to be respected.
The water is warm and reasonably deep, although front crawl can catch the odd long weed. The owners have a selection of kayaks and canoes sitting on the beach and they are free to use. We fancied the Canadian canoe and had a couple of nice paddles à deux in the still waters. (Pic for attention).
The walk to the town is high above the Var and this is the first time that we have noticed the deposition coming from it. This valley is full of eroded material and in the subsequent days we follow it up stream and there’s millions of tonnes of it and it’s an industry to ‘quarry’ and process the gravel.
We go all French and have a long lunch as we otherwise wander these tiny ‘streets’. There’s no room for cars. They are in the midst of a small music festival and we are serenaded by a couple playing the fiddle and accordion, to a high standard.
Assiette de Secca is a local starter dish of thinly sliced cured beef.
Just when we think we’ve wandered all the alleys, we come across a group of guys at the door to an amazing motorbike museum. It is on three levels in the most inaccessible location and whilst I’m no expert, I’d wager that there’s quite some value in there.
Here’s just a few pics…
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