Today we took off to the mountains way up behind Nice. So glad we did, a different world up there. This rock to the right can just be seen from our apmnt. although it is a long way away.
We had three and half hours up there just driving, looking and now and then getting out of the car.
As you can see the mountains are very rocky. At one stage we were at 1000m then went down a little and up even higher as you will see by the following photos. The town below the rock above is called Saint-
Jeannet. We drove up to there and drove through the very
one stage we thought that our car might be too wide to get
through. We managed and then had to come all the way back. Lots of fun, people staring at us as we were the only ones driving up the roads. Everyone else was walking.
Photo on the left was one of the streets we drove through but that ones quite wide.
There are so many cyclists riding over the mountains. Must be mad in this heat, but I guess it is Saturday so they are all out. It is a very popular sport here in France mountain biking.Don't know where they get their energy.
The weather has been good to us while staying in Nice. Although a couple of days ago we could see the rain up in these maintains while it was sunny down on the coast
The village of Saint Jeannet was very high up. They seem to build a lot of their towns on mountain tops and also hanging off the sides of the mountains.
On our way down after leaving Saint Jeannet we took this photo, ( to the right), of the town.
As we were leaving we filled up with diesel and Pete has worked out that we are getting equiv. of 58 miles to the gallon, so he is pretty pleased with that.
It is quite hard driving on these hill side roads as the locals always go over the centre line as they are coming towards you on the bends. They are so impatient, if you leave a slight gap in front of you they have to pass and slip in. They always tail gate you waiting for their opportunity to pass and push in.
A great view before we reached the top
Took this (left) to show how far from the coast we are. You can just see the sea in the back ground.
The photo below is Coursegoules which we passed through. Not sure what people do all day in these places up in the hills as they seem so far away from anything.
Another great outlook through the valleys
Note how every now and then a few houses appear on the mountain side. So far away from anywhere. What do they do?
Just passed this nice little rock bridge running over a creek.
We have now reached Cipieres drove through and saw nobody but one man driving a car. Where do they all go. Probably having their siesta as we have found a lot of places still shut down for two hours from mid- day. Can be a nuisance especially if you are running out of gas. They do have credit card facilities if they are closed but they don't accept NZ credit cards. Also when paying road tolls at the booths can't use our credit cards, but every where else seems OK We got caught on tolls, didn't have any small change so tried to use our credit card, no good so all we had was a 50 Euro note, wouldn't accept that. At this stage in a bit of a panic holding everyone up behind us.Had to press emergency red button and a man appeared from nowhere looking angry and changed our fifty for tens and left us to it. You soon learn these things.
This is typical of the mountains rock everywhere.
We stopped here at Gourdon and sat on the edge (not quite) of this sheer drop and had our lunch looking over the valley where we had driven up from. A chap told us that it was a sheer drop of 5/600metres. PT wouldnt let me go to close.
To the left is Gourdon. You can just see how they build their villages on the side of the mountains.
Below, more of the scenery on our way back to base.
Really enjoyed going up into the mountains. Got back about two so started to prepare for our departure tomorrow,when we head up to Chamonix- Mt Blanc. It will be about a six hour drive.
Still made time to go down for a swim. I will miss the swimming. The five days here seem to have gone so fast, but I guess we have been pretty busy.
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