Corps to Saint Vallier de Thiey
Trip Start
Jun 24, 2008
1
12
41
Trip End
Aug 28, 2008
Saint Vallier de Thiey,
France
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Woke up to a beautiful morning, and the hotel continued to surprise us, What a breakfast, the dining rooms were set with white table cloth and fresh flowers. With the tables ready, lovely French pastries and fresh fruit, strawberries, raspberries, apples and oranges. Coffee arrived fresh in large earthenware jugs. So despite the fact that we probably really didn't need any food, we ate far too much.
Eventually we were ready to check out, I had gone down first so thought I might as well pay, the whole deal came to 132.00 Euros. But I couldn't find my wallet in my bag, I was surprised but not worried, I had had the bag with me the whole time. Checked the computer bag, the room the car and now I started to worry, Didn't think I had had my wallet out since Lyon. All kinds of thoughts were going through my mind, how do we contact the hotel in Lyon, how do we get hole of the wallet etc. Peter went upstairs to get the receipt for the Lyon Hotel, which he had thrown out. The man behind the desk was looking at me and looking at the bill
Breakfast at Hotel de la Poste
. He spoke no English, But I tried to explain, my husband would pay, as I had lost my wallet. He lit up and asked if I had been on the terrace last night, when I said yes, he rushed off and came back with my wallet. Must have fallen out when I was taking my camera in and out of the bag. What a relief. Everything was of course in the wallet. I will take better care in the future. Finally we are on our way down Route Napoleon, and we were not disappointed, the scenery was magnificent. Majestic craggy mountains, in many places it reminded us of the South Island (New Zealand) except much greener. Some of the rivers even had the same turquoise colour. But there were also lush fields and many deciduous trees.
First town was Gap, where the GPS sent us around in circles, I guess the problem was that when the streets were so close together it was hard to decide which one 'SHE' meant. We finally decided to just head out of town on what looked correct to us, and once away from the small streets, start listening again. That worked fine and we got back on the correct route. Kind of. After the very narrow roads we had been on yesterday, Peter had suggested we put the GPS on the fastest route rather than the shortest. For some reason, SHE was now taking us down the D994 through Serres instead of sticking to the N85. This road was probably 10 km longer and might have had less traffic, but there was roadworks which slowed us down quite a lot.
Leaving Corps
We stopped in Sisteron for a walk and a light lunch, lovely little town. It was getting warm and the flies were getting annoying while we had lunch.
Much of the travel was done at an altitude of over 1000 meters, we got as high as 1200m this of course meant very winding roads, quite narrow in parts, and once you have seen a large truck take one of those corners, using the whole road, you live in constant fear of meeting a large truck. Happy to say we didn't meet any trucks on the corners, but many a car seemed to want both sides of the road too.
We had a walk around Castellane, which was a lovely town, with a small church sitting on top a very tall rock. The town was busy full of energetic people wanting to do river rafting and walks. A stop for the Verdane Gorge, the photos we saw looked amazing. Will have to put that on the map for next time.
We were starting to get tired and started to look for a place to stay. There weren't many and they didn't look all that wonderful. By the time we got to Saint Vallier de Thiey, I said STOP. We were both getting tired. Found an O.K. Hotel, with parking near by. 75.00 Euros for a room with a nice little balcony overlooking a large grassed area with kids playing rugby. Hotel Le Prejoly is only a 2 star and I certainly would not rate it any higher. After a short rest we walked around town, which didn't take long. Picked a little restaurant by the square.
Route Napoleon
Wasn't terribly impressed. Peter ordered the Plate of the day, Pork with spaghetti and mushrooms. They came back to tell him they had run out of the pork and offered him beef instead, didn't tell him that instead of 10 Euro it would cost him 16. he didn't really mind as it was very nice. I ordered Melon and Parma, looked lovely when it arrived, a small melon cut in half with the Parma piled on top. Looked good, but was rather difficult to eat especially as the melon could have been riper, we also had to remind them to bring the wine. Sounds like we were tired and grumpy. Still when you don't speak the language, it's hard to complain. There was wireless in the hotel, just couldn't get it working in the room, but worked fine downstairs, so once I get dressed, I will upload this. Uploaded the previous day last night. Couldn't get into the Travel Blog site in the morning.
Great shower, amazing pressure, but no hair dryer.
