The GR5 is the premier long distance hiking trail of Western Europe. GR stands for "Grande Randonnée", which in French means a big walk, or long distance hike, or long hiking trail. The GR5 begins at Hoek van Holland on the North Sea, and ends in Southern France at the Mediterranean on the French Riviera.
We have chosen, as we usually do, to walk this GR5 route in reverse from Menton on the French Riviera to Briancon, about half way to Lake Geneva. In 2012, Ian and I had walked another section of the GR5 from Briancon to Geneva, again in the opposite direction to the norm. Our track this year through the French Alps closely follows the French/Italian border and we have chosen this route for several reasons. Firstly it's close to Alba and the Piedmont area of Italy where we have just finished a cycle ride. Secondly, we start the hike in mid June when it's possible for many of the high passes in the French Alps to be still snow covered, but this is less likely in the south between Menton and Auron where the mountains meet the sea, the latitude is less, and the Alps aren't as high. Thirdly, as we walk north from Auron to Briancon in early July, much of the snow on the high passes will have melted. And fourthly, its a section of the GR5 that Ian and I haven't done before and since Graham and Jenny haven't done any of the GR5, it suits them just fine.
The day sections of the traditional GR5 are often around 30k, so we have elected to do shorter walks of around 13 to 15k, mixing a number of different GR routes that are subsets of the GR5 - namely the GR51, GR52, GR52A and so on, switching between paths to see places that interest us, and to make the days of reasonable length, knowing that there is little or no transport in this area, unlike other walks we have done where there are trains, buses, chairlifts, gondolas and cable cars to shorten the distances.
The first part of the walk from Menton is through the Alpes Maritime, then through the Alpes de Haute Provence and into the Hautes Alpes finishing in Brandon, where we had started the GR5 in 2012.
