Gorge du Verdun in a motorhome

We stopped for the night on the Aire at Laragne Monteglin.  We had made no firm plans for the next day other than to head for Cannes via Digne les Bains, after which we would make a decision as to which route to take depending on the weather.  The day dawned fine and by the time we reached Digne Les Bains, after having paid a visit to the Intermarche in Laragne, the sun was well and truly out. We had an early lunch and, with wall to wall blue sky, made the decision to take the D952 to Riez and the D953 along the north side of the Gorge du Verdun. What a spectacular drive, but not for the faint hearted or those without a head for heights. The road narrows and twists and turns almost immediately after leaving the “The Route Napoleon,” the N85  and seemed to climb ever higher with each hair pin bend. Riez looked a pleasant town to visit but the streets were very narrow and our objective was the Gorge du Verdun so we did not linger. The approach to the gorge starts just after passing around Moustiers-Ste-Marie, a village that appeared to literally cling to the mountain side. Here the road really narrowed and started to climb to the highest col of 1082 metres. It offered spectacular views of the gorge and the lake with sheer road side drops, some in excess of 800 metres, with little to no protection at the roads edges. At one point, I was horrified to meet an oncoming tourist coach and to come across a narrow arched tunnel with no height or width markings and a blind exit. How the coach got up there I have no idea. I pulled to the side of the entrance to the tunnel and watched several cars pass through and weighed  my options up. It looked do-able. I definitely did not want to retrace our route back so there was no alternative. We inched our way through and there was a great sense of relief when we emerge unscathed. Later on I was to find the height was actually 4.1 meters to the top of the arch but I have no idea of how narrow it was. It could not have been much more than 3 meters.  I was glad it was off season and we tackled this route between noon and 1500hrs when most using the route would be lunching. I wouldn’t want to do it again in a hurry but it was well worth making the effort just the once.  We now know it is do-able in a 6.5 ton 8 metre motorhome in spite of the blind bends and narrow width of the road. The light traffic helped and we made good time and arrived at Castellane at the end of the gorge about 60 miles from where we had turned off the Route Napoleon at about 1430 hours.

The route is definitely not suitable for caravans but if you have a motorhome smaller than mine, go for it.