Provence Trip June/July 2023 - Part 4 La Col de la Bonette (Scenery)

The Col de la Bonette is on the stretch of D64 that links Jausiers, near Barcelonnette to the village of St Etienne de Tinée in the Alpes-Maritime dept, which eventually links Nice to Barcelonnette and beyond in the summer months when the col is open. Most of the road lies within the Mercantour National Park. Originally a mule track, transformed into a road in 1832, then classified imperial in 1860 by Emperor Napoleon III, the road as we know it was completed in 1964 but it took another ten years for the loop road around the Cime to be completed.

At 2,715 m the Col de la Bonette is one of the highest paved road passes in Europe; apparently if you allow for the extra loop road around the Cime de la Bonette, which reaches 2,802m, it is the highest paved through road. The loop road is, however, not a col (pass)! There are higher non through roads, there are higher passes and there are higher unpaved roads but there is one thing which is not disputable, and that is that it is a very high route indeed!

There are a number of abandoned military forts and bases up in the mountains as we are very close to the Italian border here and they stem from the days when France was protecting its Alpine borders from the Italians. You can see a fort in the following photo on the right - click to view larger.

You can see the loop road in the following two photos - not the obvious road below but up in the grey rocky area - and the Cime (which means peak) is at 2,860m. The Tour de France has included this pass a number of times in the past and will again this year.

We didn't actually do this loop - you don't have to as you can just ignore that extra section and start going downwards after the actual pass. I would have loved to have stopped there and climbed up to the top of the Cime, where there is an orientation table. Looking ahead though, we could see those snow drifts and were a bit unsure. It's not like we could have turned around on the road to come back and reversing a motorhome wasn't going to be great deal of fun! So we did the boring but sensible thing.

There wasn't much traffic and the road was well looked after and definitely ok to do in a 7m motorhome at the beginning of July. I'm not sure about travelling it during the school summer holidays though.

I'm pretty sure this drift was actually just before we came to the col, further reinforcing our decision to miss the loop!

And down the other side.

Fourches Camp, another abandoned military site.

I didn't take so many photos coming down as going up. At this last place where we were able to stop the whole hillside was covered in Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus minor).

Yellow Rattle.

I've never seen a Foxglove like this before - Large Yellow Foxglove (Digitalis grandiflora), native to southern Europe and Asia.

This day was, for me, the highlight of our two week trip - between the scenery and the alpine wildflowers it was absolutely outstanding. There were even butterflies at the beginning of the day, some of which I have shown on my Butterflies in Provence post. I can't wait to revisit the col, though on a warmer day might be nice!

We spent the night at Isola in the Tinée valley before continuing on our journey.