Cycling Italy & Hiking the GR5

Monday 27th June:  Blue skies and cool to hot, 16°C to 32°

St Dalmas Valdeblore to Roure: 16k walk: 8.20am to 3.40pm, 7hrs  20 mins

Today was another big day, a long 1000m descent to St Sauveur sur Tinee then a very hot climb 600m up to Roure.  The Tinee Valley is beautiful with a backdrop of the Mercantour Alps.  Highlight was getting to Rimplas, a small village perched on a hill, to see Roure, today's destination, a small village clinging to the steep side of a mountain on the opposite side of a 600metre gorge at the same height as Rimplas - and we had to go down then up the other side.

We all slept well at the Auberge des Mures - they've installed new mattresses made from Bultex - brilliant stuff.  I'll be looking for one in Oz.  WiFi allows me to catch up on my blog and emails.  Breakfast on our balcony is our own museli with powdered milk then hot tea. We're showered, packed and out the door by 8.20am, but not before asking about the 2 dogs sitting in the foyer, some kind of Swiss Bouvier cross, and they're big as bears! 

It's a beautiful blue sky slightly chilly day as we walk back down the road to St Dalmas. I pick up a trail running shirt that someone had left behind.  I saw it yesterday, and hung it up for someone to find if they returned to get it but they didn't so it's now mine  After admiring the 1000 year old Romanesque church, we stop at the local supermarket to buy 4 tomatoes - 2 for lunch today and 2 for tomorrow.  Graham decides NOT to buy coffee - he's now a tea man, and Jenny forgets to buy something for morning tea. 

It's down hill on the road and for teh first time this trip we are now on the actual GR5, not a subset variance of it like the GR52, the GR51, the GR52A or the GR51C.  This is the main GR route from Nice to Lake Geneva.  A few k down, we leave the road, and start walking down hill on a track that winds beneath La Roche, a bigger village than St Dalmas.  Criss crossing the main road, we pass through several scattered small villages of La Bolline and Le Planet.  The track follows a spur and on both sides there's deep gorges.  We know we'll need to drop down soon and we do.  Down a steep forested trail to the creek at the bottom, but then it's another 150 metre climb back up to the village of Rimplas.

The cool air has become hotter, and the town fountain with running cold water is welcome. It's time for a cup of tea, perched on the steps leading into the village. Graham's beginning to like tea not coffee, and Jenny settles for my chocolate and Graham's apple for morning tea.  A few hundred metres through the village we see Roure, the village we're headed for, in full view on the opposite mountain side.  We can see that there's a 600 metre gorge between us and it - down 600m then up 600m.  The road down is quite well graded, but there's a few worrying signs warning us of rock falls, and the road is already covered with layers of fallen shale.  The road goes down and down and eventually leads to a track through the forest which is also well graded.  It's a little bit cooler in the shade.  Towards the bottom, the track gets very steep.  There's 2 day hikers picking cherries, so we join them.  The tree is loaded with small sweet juicy cherries and after ten minutes of gutsing, we carry on down the steep track to  St Sauveur sur Tinee which has come into view in the valley below.  We're hoping there's a boulangerie open to buy bread for lunch tomorrow, but guessing that we'd arrive between 12 and 2pm when all French shops are shut, we were right - all shut. 

We arrived at 12.30pm and the town is dead except for a small bar/restaurant with a lone hiker having lunch.  We set up our picnic lunch on the seat outside the Tourist Office - which is also closed - and finish off our bread, butter and ham with 2 tomatoes.  Lunch tomorrow will be spartan.  A stroll through the village confirms to us that everything is closed, so we may as well start our 600 metre climb up to Roure, which we can see with craned necks high above us, with houses that look like they are glued to the vertical wall of the gorge.

It's hot, we're thirsty and it's a long climb up.  Very steep and stony at first as we criss cross the main road.  St Sauveur fades into the back ground as we climb higher but about half way up the track's zig zags become longer and less steep and after 2 hours of climbing we reach the first stone houses of Roure and zig zag our way up through the narrow streets of the village, still climbing, until we a sign to our home for the night - the Auberge Le Robur.  It's a very old looking building and it doesn't open until 4.pm, and it's now 3.40. So Jenny minds our bags while the rest of us do a scout around town looking for a bar - there's none - only cold water from the town fountain.  

Back to Le Robur, which has just opened, and we're shown to our rooms.  We've booked into the restaurant tonight - it's a Michelin One Star Restaurant and we thought it would be fun to try.   We're not sure what we're in for, but we've booked for a 35 euro three course meal called Sel and Sucre which we guess means something salty for a main and something sweet for dessert, and the wines start at 28 euro (about $47 per bottle), up to 120 euro ($200 per bottle).  We'll soon see.

We've washed, showered, checked emails (downstairs as WiFi doesn't work upstairs) so there's time for a cold beer or two downstairs in the lobby.  There's a farm worker having a drink at teh bar, so it must be the only bar in town.  We've seen on Trip ASdvisor that the Michelin starred restaurant at Auberge Le Robur is #1 of 1 restaurant in Roure. 

At 7.30, we're the only ones in the restaurant with a magnificent view over the Tinee Valley.  Pauline, our host who speaks English very well, comes to explain the 3 set menus - there's a 3 course for 35 Euro, a 5 Course for 45 Euro, a 6 Course for 65 Euro.  We select the 3 course with a bottle of red 2012 Exception.  The first course is the flower of eggplant, the second is the meat from duck leg rolled in a filo pastry, and the 3rd course is laminated vanilla cream cakes with strawberry sherbert.  It's all beautifully presented and we really enjoyed it.  Even the bread was a special mountain loaf from Isola. The 2012 wine was also very nice.  Pauline tells us a little of the history of Roura - the name originated from the word Rora, which means oak tree, under which villagers conducted their business.  She also tells us of the family at Longon where we're going tomorrow - they have sheep, cattle and horses and in winter all the animals come down from Longon at 2000m, to the village of Roure at 1100m where's there's no snow and the y roam the streets and paddocks until it's summer and time to herd them back to the plateau of Longon, high in the Mercantour National Park.  We're really looking forward to tomorrow.