Holiday in France 12 - Col du Galibier

Alan has long wanted to cycle the Col du Galibier, a stunning piece of road, steep and reaching an altitude of 2,645m. It is a fabled road in the Tour de France and the winner of this stage is given a special award, the 'Souvenir Henri Desgrange', the man who inaugurated the Tour. There is a statue of him near the top which I managed to miss entirely.
Setting out from Valloire, on the D902 still, we found a convenient place to park and Alan got kitted up and started to ride. I decided to drive to the top and meet him there which gave me opportunities to stop en route and take photographs. It is always a little hair raising driving the van on narrow roads with steep bends, although it was pretty quiet and the only main obstacle was an old French diesel van full of sheep which chugged and fumed it's way up, which I eventually overtook.
The Galibier col lies between the Massif d'Arvan-Villards and the Massif des Cerces in the Dauphiné Alps. I stayed in our parking spot and took some photographs there before moving on, passing Alan who was on a steep incline. The road was I think the finest I have been on in Europe and I stopped whenever there was an opportunity to. The further up I went the more I was in the clouds until finally, at the top there were times with almost no visibility. Towards the top you can drive through a single lane narrow tunnel under the mountain, which I did not choose as this would have missed the col. The road over the top of the pass was only constructed in 1976.
Alan eventually met me at the top and after a cup of coffee we slowly descended from the pass towards the Col du Lautaret. But more of this in the next blog.
There are again rather a lot of pictures of this stage of our journey. I can only apologise, but it was stunning!


























  













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