This day dawned lovely and sunny and we went for a wander around Barcelonnette, which is quite a pretty place. We were lucky to find it was market day, so my brother and I who were after honey, had a good mooch around and a honey taste here and there. (I found later in the year that the local honey producers selling at a fete in my village were a lot cheaper - Provence markets are aiming at tourists, after all! I'll know better in the future).
And off we set - up to the highest paved road in Europe, supposedly! at 2,715m altitude. I had researched this road on the internet as I wanted to know if it was doable in a 7m motorhome. The answer was yes, but not if you suffer from vertigo. That was no longer going to stop me!
In the first place that we stopped where I came across butterflies puddling, I also had a good look around the wildflowers. This was at about 2,000m altitude.
Most of the IDing has been done with PlantNet so I will blame them if my IDs are incorrect!
Burnet Rose (Rosa spinosissima).
Further along and higher still, we stopped beside a lake and a valley with a little stream running through. Wildflowers abounded and it was fabulous! It was quite a lot cooler by now though.
In the following photo there is Alchemilla mollis and Thyme plus various other little flowers.
Alpine Birds-foot Trefoil (Lotus alpinus) and Alpine Chickweed or Mouse-ear (Cerastium alpinum).
Clockwise from left: Betony-leaved rampion (Phyteuma betonicifolium), Alpine Clover (Trifolium alpinum), Alpine Avens (Geum montanum) and Peacock-eye Pink (Dianthus pavonius).
Alpine Thrift (Armeria alpina).
There was a high mountain lake, with a few people fishing in it. There didn't look like any life in it, but I guess there was some kind of mountain fish or they wouldn't be fishing!
A Gentian (Gentiana utriculosa) on the left, Alpine Bellflower (Campanula alpestris) and me with camera in hand.
In the boggy patch beside the stream I came across two different orchids, on the left a Marsh Fragrant Orchid (Gymnadenia densiflora) and a Dactylorhiza, though I can't be sure which one it is. PlantNet has given me Dactylorhiza majalis subsp. alpestris or Broad-leaf Marsh Orchid (Dactylorhiza majalis). It has quite wide spotty leaves so I think it is the Alpine Dactylorhiza.
A little bit further up the road we spotted a Marmot; this was my brother's first sighting of one so I was really pleased about that! It was closer than the ones we had seen in the Pyrenees, but it didn't hang around for long.
A little pond and views of the treeless ridges as we travelled higher.
And so we continued, higher and higher ..... to be continued in Part 4!
The next morning with new tyres fitted we finally made it to the Valensole plateau, and boy was there lavender! Miles and miles of it in places. I was in my element. 😀
At the next stop (next three photos) the different lavender varieties were labelled, which I found very useful. We had learned about the three different kinds of lavender used in perfume and cosmetic production - True (Lavandula angustifolia), Aspic (L. latifolia) and Lavandin (L. x intermedia), which is a hybrid of the two, at the lavender farm we visited the previous summer. Within each of these three there are different cultivars though, just to confuse us all. 😁
The smaller lavender is usually the true lavender, L. angustifolia, like the following photo.
No butterflies in sight though, which was really disappointing. There had been dozens at the lavender farm the previous year in the Ardeche.
Yet another lavender farm - some had shops selling their own products. In a number of fields were women dressed up in pretty white summer dresses doing their best Instagram posing!
On this plateau there were two other plants which I assume are also used for the perfume or cosmetic trade, but I don't know what they are. I could only take photos as we were driving past.
This looks like it might be Curry Plant (Helichrysum italicum), though that doesn't exactly smell nice, or perhaps Cotton Lavender (Santolina) which doesn't smell I don't think. Note the white dress!
After the plateau we passed Lac St Croix and headed down the Verdon gorge.
We didn't see the best bits of the gorge as due to time constraints we took the shorter route and K and I had already done the longer one in October 2017 when the leaves were turning a lovely colour. Still, what we could see was quite stunning, though on this particular road there were fewer places to stop to take photos.
We stopped for the night at Castellane, beyond the gorge but still on the river Verdon. We were to follow this river to near its source higher in the mountains.
Castellane was a small town with an interesting rock towering over it, with a cross built right on the top. We had a walk around the town the next morning, but none of us fancied hiking up there!
From here we headed north up the upper Verdon river valley through St Andre les Alpes, Colmars and Allos to Barcelonnette, via the Col d'Allos. The higher we went, the colder and cloudier it got, until we were up in the drizzle!
This road wasn't ideal in a motorhome, but we managed fine. I'm just glad we weren't coming down as it was rather narrow in places and might have set off my vertigo, which I have managed to quell quite well in recent years. When we reached the summit at 2,250m altitude it was really chilly with nothing to see as we were up in the clouds. So we headed on down to our campsite in Barcelonnette and hoped for fine weather for the next day, our really high altitude day!
Part 3 and the famed Col de la Bonette to come!
Continuing our Provencal holiday last summer. I am trying my best to go through hundreds of photos and just pick out a few from each place of interest, but that's not easy, as in many places up in the mountains I took hundreds of photos with my phone as we were driving along!
The first place we went to was Gordes, in the Luberon. We've been before, but the town is so pretty so I wanted my brother to see it.
The river beside the campsite. I was pleased to see everything looking nice and green, as we have only visited Provence previously in the autumn, when it was very dried out and brown.
This is an old photo of Gordes, as we couldn't get a parking spot at this viewpoint in June.
Somewhere we hadn't visited before in Gordes was the Bories Village. These were a group of 30 dry stone huts, which were restored over a period of ten years. Taken from this website: "The word "Borie", of Provençal origin, comes from the Latin "boaria" - oxen stable -, signifying a type of shed. The hut has always been an institution in Provence. First popping up in fields to house the peasants' tools, it became, as time passed, the little country house, done up, often in quite a rudimentary manner, to spend Sundays and holidays. The borie also permetted [sic] shepherds to shelter their flocks. To build them, our ancestors gathered the stones from the calcareous surroundings. They were just lying there for the taking."
There are many Roman ruins across southern France but also a number of intact bridges, still standing and some, like this one, still in use.
Still in the Luberon, we visited one of several former ochre mines, this one entitled the Colorado Provencal. I wore my trainers as I remembered having very orange feet the last time we went to one of these dusty places in sandals!
After leaving the Luberon the plan was to visit the lavender fields up on the Valensole plateau. We had seen some lavender fields in the Luberon, but they weren't in places where you could stop or get a good view. However, just as we were driving up the hill to the plateau, this happened. 😢
We're now going back to last summer, when we went to Provence in late June/July. Whilst I saw some great butterflies, of which seven were lifers (!), they weren't found all over the place. There would be a whole group of different species in one area, then nothing much in places I would have expected to see them, like wildflower meadows and lavender fields. You will see in some of the following photos the kind of habitat where I came across them.
The first two were in the Luberon at one of the many former ochre mines. I would like to think this butterfly is Chapman's Blue (Polyommatus thersites). The main difference between this and the Common Blue is the lack of the second marking on the underside forewing in Chapman's. This in itself doesn't always mean it's a Chapman's, as it could be a Common Blue without this marking! But given that I saw a number of them on holiday then I am counting it as Chapman's - which makes it Lifer no. 1.
There were a few other interesting insects as well as butterflies of course. I think this bug is a Red Assassin Bug (Rhynocoris iracundus). I didn't have my SX50 with me as I was taking photos of scenery where we were, so I don't have macros of this and the following butterflies.
Lifer no. 2 is this handsome False Ilex Hairstreak (Satyrium esculi), a butterfly of hot dry scrubland of southern France, Iberia and north Africa, where the larvae feed on Holm and Kermes Oaks.
Some days later going high up in the mountains near Barcelonette, on a rather chilly day, I came across a group of butterflies puddling. Not interested in the wild flowers, but just in this stony patch by the side of the road.
I don't know if these skippers are Southern Grizzled Skippers (Pyrgus malvoides) or Alpine Grizzled Skippers (Pyrgus andromedae), which both look alike to me. This spot was at 1,950m altitude and both butterflies can be found in habitat like this. Either way, they count as Lifer no. 3.
Also amongst these puddling skippers were several Mazarine Blues (Cyaniris semiargus) and a Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus) on the right.
I was pleased to also see a number of Small Blues (Cupido minimus). In the picture below, the top left and bottom butterflies are Mazarine Blues, the middle small one is a Small Blue, and the other on the right, I'm not sure!
Just outside the village was this butterfly on a rock. It confused me at first, then I realised it was a Comma. But every time I looked at the photo it puzzled me as it just didn't look right. On further delving into 'pale coloured Commas' I discovered it's actually a Southern Comma (Polygonia egea), which I didn't even know existed! Yet another lifer then, no. 4. This species prefers perching on rocks in hot dry places which is quite different from the regular Comma, and is found from South Eastern France through Italy and the Balkans to Greece.
One of the places we stopped which you would imagine would be full of butterflies. But - no.
At a layby near Mons in the Alpes-Maritimes at about 1,100m altitude, with a nice muddy puddle, that's where, again, I found many butterflies! This is an Essex Skipper (Thymelicus lineola).
Another lifer, no. 5, a False Heath Fritillary (Melitaea diamina). These butterflies inhabit damp flowery meadows, woodland margins and rides from low to alpine levels up to 2200m.
I suddenly noticed something brown moving - and knew what it was immediately. A Nettle Tree butterfly (Libythea celtis)! Click on the photo to see it larger, as it has a snout! It's not an easy butterfly to photograph when it's against mud. My sixth lifer of the trip.
I've saved the best for last. In this same patch of mud was a butterfly that I have wanted to see for a long time. Can you guess why? It's the Amanda's Blue (Polyommatus amandus)! I didn't even know what it was at the time, just snapped away, and was sooooo excited when I ID'd it. My namesake made it the seventh lifer of our holiday. 😁 Amanda's Blue is usually found at an altitude of at least 1,000m and inhabits meadows, heaths, grassland and roadsides across much of central and northern Europe, and feeds on various Vetches.
It's occurred to me that nearly every time I have seen butterflies puddling, it has been at altitude. Better minerals in the rocks in the mountains? It wasn't a lack of flowers, certainly. Food for thought!
Other butterflies noted - all these seen at yet another layby at under 1,000m, although flitting around the flowers in this place:
Great Banded Grayling
Meadow Brown
Scarce Swallowtail
Cleopatra
Brimstone
Clouded Yellow
Small Heath
Small White?
False Ilex Hairstreak (again)
Southern White Admiral
Marbled White
So all in all, despite only seeing butterflies of note in about five or six different places during a two week trip, the species encountered were rather special! 😀💜
