Route Napoleon

Route Napoleon traces Napoleon's 100 day march northward, after returning from his excile on the Mediterranean island of Elba. The march culminated in his defeat at Waterloo.
The road today is a fantastic driving road, with interest in those buildings that would have existed in 1815 when Napoleon passed through.

Vars les Chaux

Vars les Chaux is an alpine village near the French - Italian border that makes up a network of interconnected ski resorts. The road in is sealed all the way making access very easy. About the same height as Temple Basin huts and equally as visually stunning, but there the similarity ends.

 Some chalets and hotels were built right next to the tows, literally walk out your door and ski down to the gondola. There must have been about 20 separate ski tows visible from the slopes.

The slopes are the venue where Ivan Origone set the World speed record of 254.958 km/hr in 2015.

Gretel training for the luge (don't you love the facial expression). A wee way off the world record though.

View of the resort from part way up the tow.

For the advanced skiers

Lac de Sainte-Croix

The yacht club - totally open air and accessible, even the fridge was left unlocked. The lake is a fantastic yachting lake: clear water, good winds and wide expanses of water.

The lake is at the end of the Verdon Gorge.

Verdon Gorge

The Verdon Gorge was one of our French highlights. A place of great natural beauty, vertigo inducing vertical drops, Griffen Vultures soaring on the thermal currents, narrow roads and teal green rivers. To add drama to our visit the mist came and went, at times severely limiting visibility - a foreboding atmosphere.

The photographs do not come close to experiencing the real thing.

It was also the scene of the race between Jeremy Clarkson (in an Audi) and the rock climbers. The two links below give replay a part of this race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKLsBk5CijQ 

http://www.topgear.com/videos/top-gear-tv/jeremy-clarkson-vs-climbers-part-12-series-7-episode-2

A Griffen Vulture (not a dirty lens).

Leaning over the edge.

There is a kayaker (you need to look hard).

Grandchildren

We are missing Johan and Sylvie, but it appears they are not missing us.

Moustiers Ste Marie

Another gorgeous French village with a proliferation of potters producing a large range of styles, that were for sale at exhorbitant prices.

Cassis

Cassis is a small town on the Cote D'zur. It was not our kind of town; all restaurants, tourists shops, tourists eating at restaurants and motorboats. It did have a fantastic old style merry-go-round, based on Jules Verne's 'Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea" and "Round the World in Eighty Days". To make our day worse it was shut, so I didn't get to have a ride.
We stayed two hours, gave up on the Mediterranean, and headed north.