Framedlight

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 payi...

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...