High Passes and Route Napoleon
After breakfast I pump up the tyre to 3 bars and bid goodbye to my host, Stefan. For the solo traveller it is expensive to stay here (€59.50 for bed & breakfast) but I reckon I could be back again. Maybe next year with Mick.
The local garage is a few kilometres down the mountain, in the town Valdeblore. It appears to be a one-man operation, run by Eric. He takes about three minutes to fix the tyre with a new plug. I will need a new tyre when I get home but I'm hoping this will get me there.
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| Getting the tyre plugged |
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| Eric |
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| New plug |
I then set the Tomtom to take me via mountain roads over to Gap. It is a really stunning ride. Unlike, say, the high Alps in Austria and Switzerland, the French build quaint villages way up in the sky. Basically if it was even remotely feasible to build a road to a mountain top the French did it, then built a village way up in the clouds.
On the winding road up to Roubion there has been a rockfall. The fixit guys are there with a small digger to clear the rubble. As I pull up the remaining loose rocks are cascading down the mountain, crashing onto the road and bouncing on down the steep valley side. There must be some workmen up above levering the loose stuff down.
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| Clearing the rock fall |
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| Bent barriers |
The safety barriers are bent all to hell. It must have been quite a violent event. Glad I wasn't riding by when it happened. But within half an hour the digger has cleared the major rubble from the road and I can carry on through.
I climb up to the remarkable village of Roubion, perched on the mountain side with no visible means of support, either physical or financial. But there is a cafe here for coffee creme. I wander about photographing some of the more extraordinary sights in this village.
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| The hilltop village of Rubion |
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| Nice coffee stop in Rubion |
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| Graffiti house in Rubion |
A little further on I stop at a junction when I see an old guy standing by his Kawasaki 550. This is Emil from Belgium, 73 years old he tells me proudly and riding the Alps since he was a nipper.
He has a house nearby and also a house in Belgium. We chat about routes and tours, about Sud Tirol which he knows well. We compare best roads and ones still to do.
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| Emil and his Kawasaki |
Emil tells me that my proposed route is closed for roadworks on one of the cols, opening for just an hour or two each day, one-way only. So he suggested an alternative, though one of the high passes will be challenging. Ok well I have to try that one.
My route takes me over several high passes. There are so many passes signposted around here I am only just nibbling around the edges.
The challenging pass has a glorious smooth ride up and down again but at the summit the road deteriorates badly and runs over a series of deep water gullies, though they are dry at this time of year. Definitely rip the sump off quite a few low-slung sports cars though.
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| View over the Maritime Alps |
After riding all day in this fabulous country I finally emerge onto the Route Napoleon just north of Gap. My road has taken me high up above the spectacular Lac du Sautet. It's a fast run now over to the unfortunately named town of Corps.
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| Summit of Col d'Allos |
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| Looking down on Lac du Sautet |
I book in to the Hotel de la Poste where I order a simple evening meal which turns out to be quite the opposite. But I will save that tale for tomorrow.
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