After Sisteron we headed to the town of Guillestre in the Queyras Natural Regional Park where we based ourselves for a few nights. From there we headed to the highest all year round inhabited village in France, St Veran. Obviously there are ski villages which are higher but people don't live there all the time. We drove along beside the river Guil and stopped at this place which looked scenic to take a few photos.
Growing in the gravel above the river I found some wildflowers! They are also species I've never seen before either which was nice. Finding wildflowers in September is quite rare due to the dryness in most places so that was quite surprising, as they were not low down right beside the river so couldn't have drawn moisture from it where they were situated.
This is Alpine Willowherb (Chamaenerion fleischeri).
Grass-leaved Scabious (Lomelosia graminifolia).
I'm pretty sure this is the Heineken Hoverfly (Rhingia campestris), which I haven't seen since we left Brittany.
Narrow-leaved Valerian (Centranthus angustifolius).
Marmalade Hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus).
I saw these flies - Bumblebee Hoverfly (Volucella bombylans) on the right and Fat-palped Tachina (Tachina ferox) on the left - on this Scabious when we arrived at St Veran, but I thought I would include the image in this post as it's about flowers and insects. As usual all these images can be clicked on to view larger which brings up the images more sharply.
Our next destination, Sisteron, has a large citadel perched on a rock overlooking the town.
This photo below is from the main town looking across the river Durance to the Rocher de la Baume.
And this is the side with the town and citadel, which you can see parts of way above us. We were prepared for this climb, however, it was rather windy. By rather windy I mean bloody awful freezing cold wind, and I had umpteen layers on including scarf and gloves. We managed about 10 steps up the path to the citadel before deciding it would only get worse the higher we went, so decided to give the citadel a miss and headed into the town instead!
Thankfully the buildings protected us from the worst of the wind so we could have a nice stroll around the town, which was really rather lovely.
I thought this shop was gorgeous - how beautifully decorated is that?! It's only touristy stuff inside but if you want to entice the tourists, this is the way to do it! (Though we didn't actually go inside 😀 because we have seen umpteen tourist shops and they generally have the same kind of thing on sale).
What I really started to notice was how beautifully decorated the town was florally. 4,700 of France's towns and villages are labelled as 'Ville Fleuri' or 'Village Fleuri' with either one to four stars (or rather, flowers) on a sign at the entrance to each town. Sisteron only has three flowers but I would have given it a five!
The church of Notre-Dame-des Pommiers, built between 1160 to 1220. Pommiers means apple trees, so I think Our Lady of the Apple Trees is a lovely name for a church (unless it is named after someone or a saint called that, which is not so romantic 😀).
Below was the best view we saw of the citadel. It would have been a tough climb up there anyway! It's something to do another time.
All I can find out about this tower is that it is medieval and called the Tour de la Médisance and was once part of the city walls.
The clock tower.
On our way further north that afternoon we passed this lovely lake, the Lac de Serre-Ponçon.
Our destination was the Queyras Regional Natural Park and the town of Guillestre. The map shows from Buis les Baronnies to Sisteron and onwards. The black line is the border with Italy.
We drove through the Regional Natural Park of the Baronnies Provencales and stopped for a wonderful walk through the Gorges de Méouge.
We crossed over via this medieval bridge from the C14th or C15th and took a path on the other side from the road.
I did see the occasional butterfly but I'm not sure what this is - possibly an Adonis Blue due to the black marks along the white edge. Could be a Common Blue though!
At first we walked along at the river level. The water was so lovely and clear and there were the occasional people sunbathing and even wallowing in the water where there was a deeper pool. Bet the water was cold and as you can see from my fleece, whilst the air wasn't actually cold, I certainly wouldn't have been sunbathing!
Our path then went higher up and was a bit dodgy in places as it was quite narrow and there was a rather long drop down! Even though I'm mostly OK with heights now, it did worry me a bit, mostly because my balance is not good due to the neuropathy in my feet, and I have fallen a few times so I have to be very careful.
I had a fall due to skidding on an acorn once in Spain!! I felt like one of those cartoon characters that continues to run once out over the cliff edge then arms and legs are whirring around in mid air - that was me until I thought, all in this second that seemed to last for ages, I will fall towards this stone wall on my right to stop myself landing completely on the floor. I got grazed and a bit bruised but was OK. Poor K got shouted at though for not catching me!
The first hints of autumn colour.
We then came down to river level again and crossed over it via a footpath bridge, and went back up to the road.
Looking back to the medieval bridge again.
On the way back to where we had parked we walked along beside the road.
It was a really lovely walk with little signs of autumn appearing here and there, although the real colours won't appear until October/November.
