6 friends experience Southern France (part 2 /2)

On the following day, we got up a little earlier because we had come to the Provence for hiking and wanted to carry out this plan now. So we started off to the Verdon canyon, which was about 30 km away, where we wanted to exercise for our descent in the great canyon. You can circle the smaller Verdon canyon on a way that is rather easy to walk and beautifully set. First, we followed this way up to the place where half of the path was quite abruptly blocked. We had to continue on a different extremely steep way leading uphill. We were all quite relieved when we reached the crest in midday heat after two hours of climbing. Unfortunately, the way disappeared somewhere on the ridge and we followed the next best way going down to the valley back to the lake and to the entrance of the canyon. There we took a break on the terrace of one of the numerous restaurants near the lake, had a drink and recovered. As it was already late afternoon, we returned to Greux and walked a little around there and noticed that Greux was quite touristy and had many restaurants and souvenir shops. In the evening, we went to bed quite early because we wanted to climb down the great Verdon canyon on the next day.

The great Verdon canyon is even a bit farther away from Greux. With its depth of 700 meters, it is the deepest canyon in Europe. So, the next morning, we got up at half past seven already to avoid hiking in midday sun again. The journey to the canyon alone was an experience as the streets led us in steep curves among the mountains, and now and then we had magnificent views of the mountains, the canyon and the big storage lake. The descent in the canyon was very exhausting, the way was so steep that it reminded us of a decayed stair and you had to be well concentrated all the time. When we reached the bottom of the canyon, we first made a rest on shore the river and then started the ascent, though we still were tired. The ascent took us nearly three hours and, although it was more exhausting, the risk of stumbling was less. We spent the afternoon on a gravel shore of the storage lake.

On the next day, we broke our camp and continued on the route south to the Côte d'Azur. There we had to look for a camping ground for some time, but finally we debarked in the small coastal town of Bormes on its enormous camping ground, named "Les Domaines". At second glance, this camping ground turned out to be an immense resort, including its own restaurants, streets, sports fields and beach. Despite all this, we had a beautiful pitch lying in a pine wood and overlooking the sea. During the following days, we made a beach holiday. Not far away, there was a lengthy bay with a white sand beach and some small restaurants, where we spent our days sun-bathing, bathing, and relaxing.

We watched the opening game of the football world championship together with other German tourists at the camping ground's sports bar. The owners had put some TVs outside especially for the tourists and the whole camping ground finally gathered there. On the second to last day of our holiday, we visited the small town of St. Tropez, which is not far from Bormes. We strolled along the famous harbour with its luxury yachts and across the centre of the town with its numerous designer boutiques.
After ten days we returned to Germany, well tanned and relaxed; and during our holiday we had not had a single rainy day.

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