Cool walking in the Mercantour, France - a quick escape to Roya in the Tinee!!

Escape from the canicule - or the carnage, after yesterday's tempests - on the French Riviera!

The crazy weather this year has created extra special conditions here - the above picture was taken last year looking down on Vignols on our way over to the Refuge de Longon after a day trailing on the impressive sphinx-like Mount Mounier.

This year - and like an idiot I didn't take the camera - the landscape is just so verdant (much more so than the parched picture above! - and rich with flowers and water pouring every where.

From the Tinee valley, the village of Roya is just a short, if narrow, drive up the valley.  There's not a lot there but there is a welcoming looking gite d'etape - Ma Veille Ecole - which has been run by the same family since 2006.  We'll be giving it a try soon! 

The GR5 takes you down to a river where picnic tables in the shade looked very inviting.  The GR5 winds slowly and non aggressively up through forest so you have plenty of time to catch you breath and enjoy the Alpine flowers. 

You pass an area on the other side of the gurgling water, which is ideal for ice climbing in the winter - although there is now of course the artificial ice tower in Le Boreon in winter months for novices and non novices to have a trial out on before getting into big nature - and also have the security of having a bar next door!!

The path eventually comes out onto an open valley plain where marmot were scampering around giving us their best warning whistles, apparently oblivious to the 100 or so (yes a 100 or so - it's not a typo!) Griffon vultures which were leisurely circling over head.  Straight out of Lord of the Rings.

As it was hot, we only had half a day, and no real fixed agenda we just pottered about admiring the "micro" stuff - the flowers, butterflies, stunning weird insects, scat (including wolf scat), bone remains ...... and eyeing up possible venues for wild swimming.  A delight!!!

The feel of the terrain is so different from the Vesubie, and we at spacebetween are very keen to get some short breaks together so that guests can come an enjoy the mix of some classic GR - Grande Randonnee- walking, some excellent off piste walking and of course the pleasure of being well fed and watered at the end of the day!

This is still - great walking - only an hour and a half from the Cote D'Azur - (and 50 minutes from us in Berthemont) come and de-stress in the mountains. Rejuvination in a flash.

And thanks to Leslie Frasier and friends of Les Chats du Mercantour for the lovely picnic lunch in their field following our wee randonnee.  For cat lovers, Leslie does sterling work for wild cats in the Alpes-Maritimes, running sterlisation schemes and a massive re-homing operation for all sorts of beasties.  She lives in Saint Etienne de Tinee - if you wished to visit, or foster/adopt cats needing a kind owner.

Get in touch for some ideas for day walks or much longer!!!  

Spacebetween - 00 33 493034857 - 00 33 678304929
Accommodation and walking holiday in the Mercantour National Park and beyond!!

Photos - top - Vignols from above - bottom - Mounier in the distance setting out from the Col de Couillole - in 2012 - dry grass!!

Flora in the Mercantour

The skies may be grey here today in the Mercantour, plus Nice Carnaval and "all that jazz" finishes on the coast of the French Riviera, but we are getting geared up for the portents of a great and early spring. It is always strange to imagine mimosa blossoming in February, when we are up here in the snow, but such is the charm of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France, sandwiched between the Med, the Ecrins and the Savoy, Provence to the West and Liguria in Italy, to the East. This fine region is unique and, away from the flim-flam in Nice, it boasts about half of all the plant species in France plus 40 or so which are endemic to the area - including both the Mercantour and the Italian Alpi Maritimi, across the border. The fine picture was taken a couple of years ago in the Valmasque, up the Roya Valley and in July when we are very pleased to be offering a Flower Power short break holiday. Not boasting of a huge awareness of flowers but enough to satisfy most people's interest in the glorious coloured (or not so coloured) fellows!! The other photograph was the following day - much higher up!! For hard core botanists we would hope to be able to muster the knowledge of our local expert Alain Creton who also does guiding in English and what's more has a teepee available in the splendid Merveilles Valley. Another interesting trail was established by an Englishman, Christopher Betts, some decades ago and although the trail is now looking rather neglected, it does form a rather formidable section of a superb walk during this holiday week. More information about Christopher Betts' work here. Following a tributary of the Bevera river south - is most fabulous for hard core canyoning as well as having a mass of "dingly dell" type flat sections to enjoy. One of the most joyous sights is to reach the Pas de L'Arpette from the Gordolasque (some 1000m of ascent) and to then look down to the glittering lakes of the Vallee de Merveilles or Valley of Wonders if you must!!, and a carpet of blue spring and trumpet gentians - as uplifting as a copse of bluebells in the UK, but with views. Edelweiss and the rare white blooms (currently not allowed to be picked) for the making of genepy are rarer sights - but we know where they are.