Framedlight

After Alan's ride we continued south thinking about where we could stay the night. Looking at the map we saw a tiny village, called Saint-Véran lying at the end of a blind valley. This seemed to satisfy a need for isolation so we left the Routes des Grandes Alpes and turned even more off the beaten track. Saint-Véran lies in the Queyras National Park, a remote region bordering Italy. It took a little while to get there and I began to worry that there would be nowhere suitable to stay. But as luck would have it we found an area of carpark outside the village (cars weren't allowed in) devoted to camper vans, where you could fill up with water and dump the necessary. The carpark was elevated with a tremendous view across the mountains. As no one came to collect any money and there seemed no way of paying it was perfect. So we stayed 2 nights, the only time on the holiday. The village, according to their website is the highest in Europe (2,042m) but there do seem to be other cont...

Early the next morning we reached the top of the Col de l'Iseran. At 2,770m it is almost the highest paved road in the French Alps. I say almost as the road climbing over the Col de la Bonnette, further south than the Iseran rises to 2715m, but a loop has been created to take in the top of the mountain, supposedly to top the Iseran at 2802m! It is bare, bleak and rocky at the top of the Col de l'Iseran, and when we were there the mountains were full of cloud. There is a stone church which fits into the rugged terrain and the laybys had a number of old sports cars in them, driving the Route des Grandes Alpes. We had now passed over the watershed from the Val de l'Iseran to the Val de l'Arc. Here are the pictures. The first is taken on the way up to the top of the col and the last is a panorama, taken looking down on Val d'Isere, stitched from 15 individual images.

Leaving Derek's house in the morning we drove through Bourg-Saint-Maurice and up into the Iseran Valley towards the Col de l'Iseran. We unwittingly followed the Route des Grandes Alpes for nearly the whole time we were down in the mountains. This was a series of roads created by the French Touring Club and finished in 1937, starting in Geneva and ending in Menton on the Mediterranean coast. It opened the area up to tourism and allowed the local population to reach the outside world more easily. With the coming of the autoroutes these rather narrow and precipitous roads are fairly free of traffic. Alan wanted to cycle up to the Col de l'Iseran (2770m) so he left me and Hettie in upper Tignes, which was deserted apart from a few workmen who were engaged on the lifts and residences in village. There is something very depressing about a ski town in summer. The high rise accommodation is usually never that well designed and the mountainside looks a mess where the runs have been...