{"id":796,"date":"2012-07-01T11:47:08","date_gmt":"2012-07-01T10:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=796"},"modified":"2025-11-23T06:02:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T06:02:20","slug":"the-gorgeous-gorges-du-verdon-a-very-grand-canyon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2012\/07\/01\/the-gorgeous-gorges-du-verdon-a-very-grand-canyon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gorgeous Gorges Du Verdon \u2013 A Very Grand Canyon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mushrooms on toast started the day and we were off again.\u00a0 First stop was in the very centre of the hilltop village of Moustiers Sainte Marie, where Rodney managed to pull over long enough to enable me to dash in to the boulangerie to buy today\u2019s baguette.\u00a0 Unfortunately, a tour bus then offloaded a huge crowd around him and I got stuck in a queue for the bread.\u00a0 Luckily we managed to move off just before the gendarmerie came around the corner.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Moustiers Sainte Marie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After\u00a0leaving the village,\u00a0the road started winding and bending and heading uphill. \u00a0We passed the Lac de Sainte Croix where it exits the Gorges Du Verdon and\u00a0it would have been lovely to have had the time to take some sort of boat up the Verdon River, but we knew it would take us most of the day to drive through the gorge, so a watery experience will have to wait until the next time; it\u2019s on the bucket list.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Lac de Sainte Croix<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For a thrill, the D71 is a most amazing drive (definitely not a cycle route!!!) with the most wonderful views of the canyon.\u00a0 In places you drive through arches, over bridges and in other places larger vehicles have to cautiously creep past each other to avoid going over the edge. We were grateful for every lay-by\u00a0which enabled us\u00a0to pull over and take in the marvellous views.\u00a0 I ran out of superlatives; incredible, magnificent, awesome and after continually saying \u201cwow\u201d at every bend, I tried \u201ccrikey\u201d for a while, but it didn\u2019t seem to have enough oomph.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Gorges Du Verdon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
On The Edge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
In The Gorges Du Verdon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
The Gorges Du Verdon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eileen certainly had her first real workout on the steep climbs and hairpin bends and we’re proud to say, she has come up trumps.\u00a0 By the time we came past more lavender fields and through Trigance and Castellane, I was wondering how many hairpin bends there are in the South of France, because today alone seemed to involve an awful lot of them.\u00a0 And by the time we got to Digne les Bains Rodney needed a break from crazy driving, so we pulled into Camping Notre Dame du Bourg and settled in for the night.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Castellane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We took loads of pictures, but none of them can truly show how awe inspiring the views are, so I\u2019m aiming to go to sleep with the visions in my head before I forget today\u2019s experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mushrooms on toast started the day and we were off again.\u00a0 First stop was in the very centre of the hilltop village of Moustiers Sainte Marie, where Rodney managed to pull over long enough to enable me to dash in to the boulangerie to buy today\u2019s baguette.\u00a0 Unfortunately, a tour bus then offloaded a huge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8167,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions\/8167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}