Thursday 7th July: Blue skies 7°C to 26°C
Ceillac to Ville Vieille: 19k walk: 8.20am to 4.20pm: 8 hrs
Breakfast near Ceillac Boulangerie
Another blue sky day! Highlight was getting to the top of Col Fromage at 2301 metres - a "soft col" - a relatively easy 600 metre climb up and down, and the top is a plateau of grassy meadow. But the views either side on this blue sky day are still stunning.
Our day starts at 7.30am and we've decided to skip breakfast and buy some fresh bread at the Boulangerie in Ceillac, 2k down the road. We're in luck. There's a small market happening in teh square, a boulangerie around teh corner and a small epicure in a side street. Ian and Jenny set up breakfast on a picnic table outside the boulangerie, while Graham and I go shopping. We return armed with fresh bread, cheese and bullock's hearts tomatoes from the market, and butter, yoghurt (which turned out to be white creamed cheese, not yoghurt) and an onion.
Forests, meadows, alps, blue sky
Col Fromage 2301 metres
Looking back across Ceilalc
Looking ahead to the Queyras
Morning tea Col Fromage
Flowers, meadows and pine forests down 13k track to Chateau Queyras
Fort Queyras
Gite de Roya
Gite de Roya
Gite de Roya
Nothing like fresh French bread and butter for breakfast - and with Ian's Jetboil, piping hot coffee and tea. It's 9.30am when we leave the village and head up the gravel road. There's already been dozens of hikers pass us by at teh picnic table. Twenty minutes up the road and the track turns sharply left up a steep hill. It's safely steep - not too many loose stones - and winds its way up through a mixture of the pine forests, and grassy meadows. Ian and I have a cup of coffee at the top of the Col Fromage at 2301m and are soon joined by Graham and Jenny. The views are stunning on bothe sides. Pine forests and snow patched alps behind us and ahead a row of shaggy peaks from the Queyras.
Down the other side is through flower filled meadows, and eventually through a forested track which remarkably continues down and down for 13 k. We're looking for a place for lunch, but the whole of the patch is streaked in cow poo and we have to wait until 2pm before we finda half decent patch behind a rock that the cows couldn't get to. The tomatoes from the market this morning are the best we've had yet on this hiking trip - full blood red bullocks hearts taht are so tasty and juicy.
Another hour down and we see Fort Queyras, a 13th Century castle built on a rock, protruding out of the valley. The only way up to see it is by the iron ladders - Via Ferrata - but they're closed for maintenance. The village of Chateau Queyras below has about 20 houses, but no accommodation, so we need to follow a grassy track beside the Valley Cristillan to the small village of Ville Vieille, just 2.7k away. The path runs beside a raging torrent and on teh other side is a busy main road. In 30 minutes we're at the village and it only takes 5 minutes to find the Gite Astragales where Anne, our host is waiting for us. We're lucky we each have a small dorm with a small shower for our selves and after washing and showering, it's time for a cold beer at 4.30pm. It's been a warm long day of almost 30k. Time to sort photos before dinner at 7pm.
A 1 litre pichet of rose is only 10 euro here at Gite Astragales, compared to 30 euro a bottle anywhere else. And its a nice pre dinner drink. Dinner is pureed vegetable soup, fish pie and risoni (orzo) which is pasta that looks like rice, with dessert of apricot crumble. There's two other hikers here tonight, who ar doing some of teh GR58, the tour of the Queyras. Anne, our host, is a mad keen cyclist and runner and her dining room hall is adorned with tags from past events. She tells us that the Col d'izoard is closed for two days - yesterday and tomorrow, to allow cyclists to rise this famous Tour de France col. We're going to Le Chalp tomorrow at the bottom of teh col, so might miss the chance to walk it car-free.