Holiday in France 17 - Col d'Agnel

The second day we decided to drive the road up to Col Agnel a little used pass into Italy, except apparently by Hannibal who it was rumoured took his elephants through it. The road indeed was quiet and very scenic. On reaching the border we parked up, Alan did the return trip back and forth on his bike and I walked into the hills for an hour or so, leaving Hettie in the van as I did not think she would manage the descents. Then we thought it would be jolly fun to stay in Italy overnight and crossed the border through fantastic mountain scenery that quickly gave way to a flattish plain..
We had no milk or bread so needed a shop, but being lunchtime nothing opened until 4.00pm. We had forgotten how difficult food shopping in remote Italy can be. Late afternoon we found a small supermarket which did not sell bread or meat, obviously not wanting to compete with their neighbours who did not seem obvious. However I managed to get some milk and dog food, another essential. Unfortunately paying by carta di credito seemed troublesome. The girl handed me the keypad and I put my pin number into it which apparently was the wrong thing to do as I should have put the amount in and then signed a piece of paper. I found this out after Mama had been called over to clear up the mess (she had already been called over three times to price up our items). Driving on for a bit we passed nowhere to camp so threw in the towel and headed back to the safety of France.
By this time it was early evening. We sped back through the Col d'Agnel and turned back onto the Routes des Grandes Alpes for Guillestre, through a steep gorge with narrow tunnels, praying we would not meet a wide lorry in the dark. On reaching Guillestre we found a campsite and had a good night.
As you can see from the photographs it was a pretty blue sky day, which did sort of suit the crumbly glittery black rock which topped the hills. The perfectly posed donkey pictures were taken in Italy and the panorama was stitched from 20 individual pictures




























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