Provence Trip June/July 2023 - Part 3 La Col de la Bonette (Wildflowers)

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!