Pilgrim's Progress – Long Distance Walks in Europe and the UK

I rather would entreat thy company;

To see the wonders of the world abroad,

Than, living dully sluggardized at home,

Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.

William Shakespeare – The Two Gentlemen of Verona

I’m not sure I would recommend a large tin of cannelini beans unless you were in extremis. My nighr in the Gite d’Étape des Bayles was an opportunity to ‘shoot the breeze’. There is definitely some verity in that school boy ditty:

Beans beans, good for your heart,

The more you eat the more you fart,

The more you fart, the better you feel,

So beans, beans for everyone!

After the previous day’s narrow escape from disaster I decided to play it safe for the stage to Castellane. Instead of following the GR4 to Castellane I would take the road there. It was a little longer but I could give my boots a break, don my trainers and get there by lunchtime. This would give more than enough time to check in to the Hotel/Restaurant I had booked, do some washing, have a shower (which I hadn’t had for a week) and spend the afternoon ambling around Castellane. What could go wrong?

Soleilhas had a lot going for it. Surrounded by sublime scenery, near the famous Gorges of Verdon and only 60km from Nice. Yet it seemed to be dying.

The hotel Lou Jas was closed and up for sale. The same was the case for the village Épicerie. I noticed an appeal from the local Mairie for candidates to take over the enterprise. Clearly the request had so far fallen on deaf ears!

Soleilhas must be representative of many small villages in rural France. The life seems to be slowly ebbing out of these communities. It’s difficult to know what the solution is.

I crossed the pass of Col St Bernarde at 1,365m. To put that in perspective that is some 20m higher than the highest peak in the UK! (Ben Nevis – 1,345m).

At the small hamlet of Demandolx I chanced upon a charming roadside café that was open. I ordered a croissant and a coffee and got chatting with a chap who was responsible for maintaining the way markers on the GR4 in the area.

I was tempted to give my thoughts about the state of the GR4 but decided that discretion was the better part of valour. I showed him a photo of the collapsed sign post I had noticed the previous day, wished him well and headed off towards Castellane.

The views down towards the Chaudanne Lake were sublime. The chap I had met at Demandolx passed me in his car and asked if I’d like a lift to Castellane. The way there by road was pretty grim he advised. I was tempted to accept his generous offer but decided to persevere with my original plan. The views were superb and there wasn’t much traffic to worry about.

That all changed when I reached the main road to Castellane. Suddenly the road was abuzz with hordes of motorcyclists buzzing past like hordes of angry hornets.

The Chaudanne Reservoir en route to Castellane could have been a sea loch in the West Highlands of Scotland rather than a natural energy source for EDF.

I was intrigued by the sharply defined geological strata in the surrounding landscape. Apparently the key geological event in this area was the Messinian crisis approximately 6 million years ago.

During this crisis, the convergence of the African and European tectonic plates interrupted water flow from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean. Sea level dropped dramatically — 1,500 meters — before rising abruptly approximately 5.3 million years ago. So if you don’t know your Messinian from your Cambrian geology, here is a convenient time chart!

Bit of a side track but if you are interested in geology and want to understand its cataclysmic impact on established religion in Western Europe from the beginning of the 19th century then I do recommend Michael Taylor’s ‘Impossible Monsters’. Well worth a read!

I eventually reached Castellane shortly after midday and hot footed it to my accommodation for the day – the Hotel/Restaurant de La Forge.

The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley as Scotland’s finest poet Robbie Burns once opined. Such was the case when I arrived at the portals of La Forge, only to discover that check in only opened at 5pm! What to do now?

A quick tour of Castellane took me 5 minutes. It is clearly a popular tourist spot with umpteen restaurants and shops selling tourist knicknacks and advertising adventure excursions including rafting and paragliding in the Verdon Gorges.

Castellane is a crossroads that connects the Verdon Gorges to the region stretching from Grasse to the Mediterranean, the upper Verdon valley and the Alpine massifs, Provence and the Digne area. The town had a good vibe about on a Saturday afternoon in May.

There seemed little option other than to esconce myself in the charming restaurant by the fountain in the middle of town and idle the afternoon away over a carafe of wine and some pasta. It proved an excellent decision. The sun was shining, the day’s walk was done and the laundry could wait for an hour or so!