Day Trips from Aix Part 9 - Gorges du Verdon

We were so content in Aix-en-Provence that we extended our stay by a week.  In the last week we packed in the final outings and activities that we wanted to complete before we left the region.  Some of the "to dos" were "eat one more croissant" or "pop into that store we always walk by" but others were bigger and the last trip out of the town was to visit "Europe's Grand Canyon".

In the foothills of the French Alps is  the deepest gorge in France, "les Gorges du Verdon".  There is a beautiful drive around the rim of the gorge and an access point from a lake that allows for exploration via kayak or boat.

The drive to the gorge, as so many drives in Provence, was beautiful.  We passed more fields of stop-sign red poppies and we saw our first (and only) vibrant purple field of blooming lavender.  The purple was literally a show stopper (or a car stopper).  We pulled a u-turn and went back to find a spot to marvel  at the sea of purple.  By this time we had driven past acres and acres of lavender fields and now that we saw the vibrancy and intensity of the colour when in bloom I understood why people make trips to Provence just to see the lavender fields.  I also could imagine, given the narrowness of the roads and the sparsity of routes, bumper to bumper traffic.  There is something to be said for exploring Provence just on the cusp of the busy season!

Soon we left the rolling bucolic hills and entered the scrubby rocky foothills that signaled our approach to the gorge.  The village of Moustier-Sainte-Marie is the official gateway to the gorge and listed as one of France's "most beautiful villages".  This old town is nestled among, and up, the limestone cliffs and is famous for its pottery, a star that is strung between cliff walls that has hung for centuries above the village, and for a chapel that clings to the rock high above.  We gazed at the village from the parking lot.  We commented on the amount of fellow visitors (suddenly it felt busy), we didn't even contemplate trying to go see the famous ceramics, we toyed with the idea of walking up to the chapel, and ultimately we decided to just "get going" and get on the water.  Surely this beautiful village, like others we gazed at from afar, will be here for another couple of decades, right!?  We'll be back.

So with priorities squared away, we drove to the Lac de Sainte-Croix which is where the Verdon river exits from the gorge  There it was a scene of summer fun.  There were families and young adults, teens and retirees, all having fun in the sun and on the water.  People rent paddle boats, stand up paddle boards, kayaks and canoes.  All non-powered floating options seemed at play.  We rented a couple of boats and headed out on the water.

The paddle was fun.  It was beautiful scenery, unlike anything we had seen in France.  All five of us were happy to be holding paddles again and the kids were happy to NOT be hiking.  We all enjoy canoeing together and although the time in the canoe was very different than the quiet low key beauty of our favorite national park back home, it was fun in a different way to be among paddle boats and floating rafts while surrounded by majestic natural beauty.

The landscape of the gorge was well worth the drive and the paddle.  The walls jut up high into the bright blue Provencal sky flecked with white fluffy clouds.  The rocks have been cut and smoothed by wind and water over millennia.  The colour pallet of the rock is grey with yellows and tans.  The green shrubby trees cling to the rock and grow in shallow pockets of soil.  The visuals played out to a soundtrack of laughter and splashing and voices bouncing off the canyon walls as fellow boaters played and paddled.

Looking down at the gorge from the road.

One of the three pairs of shoes we all traveled with this year - Keens (pictured), flip flops and sneaker.
This year was not about being fashionable!

The lake where we rented our boats.

The smile says it all.  We had a great time paddling the Gorges du Verdon.