Oh What a Gorges Day

Decided this morning to give the girls a break and headed off to the Gorges of Verdon, despite the warnings from camp staff and France book on the perils of the journey. Decided to head for a town called Castellane that is at the start of the Gorges. Although only 50 miles, Tom-Tom gave me a journey time of 75 minutes. 10 miles into journey hit my first hint of trouble when it went back into mountain goat mode and took me through a village called Tourette. This village had 1 windy road through village and upwards and on 1 stretch I had to reverse 3 times to let locals by. 15 minutes later and having visited a few front rooms and kitchens I made it through. Then the road became very steep and narrow, not helped by Tour de France teams training and cutting width of road down to Smart car status. Then after 20 miles hit the cliff edges that I was warned about. Sheer drops with only a couple of ornamental garden pebbles to separate me from a meeting with my master. One particular stretch was so precarious I was travelling at 5 mph and crossing into left lane to negate my vertigo. I would have gladly switched to jumping from a plane with a parachute at this point, given the choice. I would have happily turned back, but there was nowhere that you could u-turn, so I fixed eyes forward, said a prayer and clutch controlled my way through the next 5 miles, the worst 5 miles of my life. 90 minutes later I finally hit Castellane which is a beautiful dramatic village surrounded by water and mountain. I can now understand why the bus only runs once a week. Having recovered my nerves, stomach et al I headed back, but decided to go a 30 mile detour to avoid the same journey, not thinking that on the other side of the mountain again I would be driving at cliff edge. This time roads wider, but still needed 10 mph and traversing into oncoming traffic, slightly better but still a struggle and it took 2 hours. I am sorry Mr L you have failed your test!
Girls relaxed by pool in the heat while I suffered.
In the afternoon we all went to Grasse which is the centre of the perfumerie business with 3 major perfumeries creating scents for most of the major perfume houses. Really interesting tour of production including the organ where the 'nose' sits and creates new scents from the various inputs including cats genitalia, goo from whales, bits of beaver, bark and musk from Tibetan goats, as well as the fragrances of lavender, orange, roses etc. Really interesting visit.
Off to Frejus to see Amphitheatre in the morning and then off to Annecy on Monday.