Provence Trip June/July 2023 - Part 2 Lavender Fields, Verdon Gorge and Col d'Allos

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!