Briançon

We are here in the highest city in France enjoying the sights after some great hikes. We have photos, but the computer in this pizzaria is not cooperating. So later for more photos.

The strangest thing happened on the way from Mondane, we encountered dusty trails for the first time. And the weather has been bright and warm in the valleys, although frosty in the mornings.

We stayed a night in a place called Valfrejus, which was very interesting because it is a ski area tht had closed for the fall season. We rented a condo for the night and scrounged for bread and wine. It was a good thing we are packing enough food to last a day in the back country.

The next day we hiked over the the mountain into what was until 1947 Italy. We stayed at the Refugio i Re Magi and essentially spent a night in Italy. The next day we hiked into Plampinent, the antithisis of the ski area towns. It is nestled in a valley surrounded by terraced hay fields that are dry and full of seed pods and seed fluff. It is ancient and beautiful with pathes between the stone houses and a church dating from 1632. The trails are full of grasshoppers and butterflies. Sometimes we see four species of butterflies in a square meter, and new wildflowers amongst the the ones that have gone to seed.

The hike on into Briançon was very interesting. We climbed to Col de la Lauze through wild country. The col is on a knife edge ridge and on the other side it is ski areas almost all the way down the mountain. We hiked off and on through the day with a German couple and two Dutch men. Nice to have company on the col for lunch.

The dry terrain reminds us of the Sierras and it seems that we can almost smell the Mediterrainian.