Hiking and picknicking at Gourdon

For today, we’d been kindly invited to a picnic at Gourdon, by one of Mathilde’s colleagues. We figured that was a good opportunity for a nice hike, especially since there was a hike which starts at Gourdon we’d attempted once but were forced to abandon due to some uncharasterically bad weather.

We didn’t get up as early as we normally would, thanks to the great Tunisian party we had attended the night before, but did arrive in Gourdon well in time to execute the walk before the picnic. Our walk took us up through the “suburbs” of Gourdon (one could perhaps argue that a village with a population of 437 doesn’t really have suburbs) towards the Plateau de Cavillore, located at the lofty altitude of 1030 meters. It actually made for some pretty heavy going, as the footpath steadily climbed towards the plateau, and the heat didn’t help… But we made good progress, and eventually arrived at the plateau, out of breath but happy.

Once up there, we had some pretty amazing views towards the coast, as well as Gourdon. Gourdon is another pretty Provencal village, possibly the one in the Alpes-Maritimes occupying the most dramatic spot, perched on its cliff overlooking the Loup Valley. It’s a pretty small place, and unfortunately a very popular spot for tourists (so most of the houses either host tourist trinket shops, artisans or a restaurant).

It didn’t take us a long time to cross the barren plateau. During our walk we were treated to the sight of a bunch of people with huge backpacks. We were wondering for a while why their rucksacks were so bloody huge (it’s not as if though this was Mount Everest or anything, until we realised they were paragliders, preparing to off from the plateau. Apparently this is one of the prime spots on the Cote d’Azur for that particular sport… And today was obviously a great day for paragliding – I’ve never seen so many in the sky at the same time before!

The descent down to the village was a breeze, as we walked past yet more paragliders climbing up towards the plateau. The footpath took us past the Chapelle St-Vincent (nothing much to see, the place is in serious need of refurbishment) and back to Gourdon.

We arrived to the picnic fashionably late, just as our stomachs were starting to grumble. All the usual CIV suspects were there; including Stephane, Sandra and Clelia as well as Antoine (the man who writes incomprehensible text messages – can’t believe the man is a French teacher :-) and his army of children. It was all good family fun; one of the older chaps even treated us to some traditional music in Provencal (yes, there is such a language). A pity the weather got a bit cloudy – but I suppose one shouldn’t complain too much considering we were still wearing shorts on an October day (I later found out there had been some snowfall in parts of Finland ;-).

So a nice end to a great weekend, then!