Thursday 30th June: Slightly overast skies cool to warm, 18°C to 23°C
Longon to Auron: 12k walk: 8.20am to12.20pm, 4hrs
Oldchurch in Roya
A quiet but picturesque day after yesterday's spectacle in the Mercantour National Park which we have now left to enter the French Alps called the Ecreins. Highlight was reaching Auron, our biggest town in 11 days from Menton.
Our morning starts with a shower, because we can, then breakfast at 7 am of almost fresh bread, butter, jam and coffee or tea. It's a short day, so there's time to visit the old church opposite the Gite. Our host from the Gite gives us the key and inside it's beautifully ornate. There's another WW2 Memorial, again with many members of the same family in the list of "Morts glorieux".
The climb out of Roya is steep, passing through meadows of yellow and whote flowers, sprinkled with wild rose bushes and clusters of lavender. Half way up, i'm ahead and stop suddenly as I'm about to tread on a line of caterpillars - so I thought until closer inspection revealed it was a black and white snake about 30cm long, slowly slithering it's way across the path. We watch as it disappears into the grassy meadow. The flowers and meadows give way to a forested track and in less than 2 hours, we're at the Col du Blainon at 2014 m. Time for morning tea. It's overcast and chilly sitting on the grassy col, but the skies clear and it soon warms up while we are sitting there.
Ornate church inside
Walking through fields of flowers
Snake on the track
Coffee t Col du Blainon 2014m
Through the flowers to Auron
Ski fields of Auron
Lunch in "dead" centre of Auron
Casino - our local shop in Auron
Most amusement in Auron
Smoked salmon and trout and salad
Dinner on the church picnic table
Gite de Roya
Gite de Roya
Another 10 minutes and Auron, a large ski village comes into view on a plateau half way dow the valley below. It only takes us and hour and a half to walk through the pine forests, past the ski towers and summer golf course and into the centre of Auron at 12.20pm. The place is dead, with no one in the streets, but there's a small Casino grocery store that's open until 12.30. Just one tomato would add to the cheese and bread we already have for lunch - one day old cheese from Longon, and two day old bread from Roure. But they've just brought out a batch of hot baguettes which we can't resist. Just as we're about to have a picnic lunch on benches in the village centre, a storm rolls in and we're forced to retreat to a ledge under and awning. The bread is so hot and delicious. We'll be back for a picnic dinner when the shop re-opens at 4pm.
Our Hotel Edelweiss is easy to find, just 50 metres around the corner near the bottom of the ski lift. We're lucky to get into our rooms at 1pm instead of check-in time at 2pm. The first thing to do is washing - everything we own after being in refuges and gites for 3 days and 2 nights. Then it's time to check emails before resting, while our washing dries - we have nothing else to wear and have to wait to go for something to dry to go for a walk.
At 4.30pm, the storm has blown over and the sun is out. Time to have a walk around Auron. The only amusement in Auron is a dog playing with a soccer ball. We find a picnic table in the church grounds and plan to have a picnic dinner bought from the local Casino.
Back to our Hotel Edelweiss to collect Graham and Jenny and bring in the last of the washing from the balcony, do some grocery shopping at our local Casino, and down to that picnic table we'd spied earlier for dinner. There's a cool wind blowing so it's beanies and jackets. Dinner of smoked salmon and trout with salad is magnificent - washed down with a 6 euro ($10) bottle of Rose. Back to our hotel and bed.