Vallee de Fontanalba
Tende
I should pose for fish eye lens more often! ooh la la!
Happiness might just be a glass of wine and 'Chevre Chaud' salad (salad with warm goat cheese toast)
"Dad, I found a petroglyph!"
So we heard about 'some' petroglyphs just north of Nice. Well, now that we are back we realize that is a total understatement... Not only are they amazing, but there are around 40,000 in the midst of the wild and beautiful Mercantour Park only one hour north!
Saturday morning Sven picked up a little Fiat and we headed north. After about 50 tunnels and bridges through insane cliffs and mountains we found ourselves in Italy for a short time (Ciao Bella!) then back on the twisty, narrow roads of France. (Tunnels and bridges are hard for the girls since they have a tradition of holding their breath across them... impossible for this steep area of the world). After only one hour of driving from Nice's beautiful coast we found ourselves in the cool, high mountains near Mercantour National Park, which was created in 1979. We drove into the stunning village of Tende and went to the interpretive petroglyph center there '
The Musee de Merveilles" where the girls wiped up Sven's drool a little... we watched in strange fascination as a holographic mustached hiker with no chin told stories about goat cheese and witches.
After a lovely outside lunch of trout (next to the trout tank), vegetable soup and strong coffee (and a strong rain sudden rain storm) we headed out the to the 'base camp' hamlet of Casterino for the walk to the 5 hour hike to the park's petroglyphs. We found out that Sunday was the one day of the year that the park service offered free tours of the glyphs so we tried to get a room at one of the four hotels in town, but they were all booked for some sort of Porsche convention (?!) so we had to head down to Tende again to look for a room. The drive from Tende to Casterino: 30 minutes of twists, twirls, kids falling over in the backseat, James Bond hairpins and white nuckles. Good stuff. All turned out well, though, as we got a relaxing lovely evening in the verticle town of Tende and weren't stuck with a bunch of Porsche addicts.
At 7:30 Sunday morning we headed up the 'James Bond' road again to see the glyphs. Sven immediately headed up the mountain while the girls ambled more gently behind him. In the 6 hours that Sven was gone the girls walked about a third of the distance that he did, saw no petroglyphs, caught a lot of grasshoppers, stopped for a lot of picnics, and in general had an enjoyable day.
Sven, however, was even more in heaven....
Balika and the girls were very accommodating in allowing me to indulge myself in spending the morning looking at petroglyphs or as they are called in French "Les Gravures" (the etchings) carved into the rocks over 4000-5000 years ago in the Parc National du Mercantour in the Vallee Des Merveiles and Vallee de Fontanalbe. We chose to go up this weekend because it is was our last one free in the Nice region. As it happens it was also the one day of the year that the parc was offering special tours to visitors who were willing to be up in the vallee by 9:00 am. That meant we had to get up at 6:30 and be out of our hotel in Saint-Dalmas-de-Tende at 7:00 am to drive up to Casterino in order to start the hike up to the Refuge de Fontanalbe.
I kissed the girls and started my fast pasted walk/run up a mountain to catch a guided tour of the petroglyphs in "Vallee de Fontanalbe". The hike going up is steep the first few kilometers but beautiful nonetheless. The fresh mountain air, sounds of birds, goats and cows moving within the vallee was relaxing. But my goal was to the top. After arriving to the refuge by 8:50 I was told in French that the tour was starting in 10 minutes, but I had to go another 20 minutes to catch them. So literally running as fast as I could- by then my legs were wondering what I was doing- I was able to arrive in time to be greeted by a wonderful parc ranger who said the tour had started but I could catch them. Ignoring the pain in my legs and excited about learning more of the gravures I was able to catch them.
They had one ranger who spoke wonderful english and was translating for two German hikers. I listened to both and I have to say my French is still not so good... I could only understand about 50 percent of what they said. Having the guided tour in French was nice because after awhile I was just listening to the French and forcing myself to try to respond- sadly and wonderfully everyone speaks English better than I speak French. So struggling with words I would be answered in English. Our guide Francoise Villain was wonderful and very passionate about the gravures and thankfully she only spoke French. She told stories of the pagan ritual creations of the gravures of bulls, corrals, bronze aged knives, and men holding knives or plows above their heads. The beautiful mountains, a deer (de cerfs), marmots, butterflies, frogs, crickets and the petroglyphs all added to this site's sacredness. I shared images of Kodiak's petroglyphs to the guide and the parc rangers. They realized I was just as excited about these gravures as they were. One parc ranger, Charle, showed us the only two bronze-aged knife gravures in this area and then took us to see one glyph all by itself where a man looks as if he is pouring water. The photo of Charle looking like she is doing yoga is actually her demonstrating how the man looks in this glyph.
All of this was special because it was not part of our tour (and we were able to spot a deer on our way to see this gravure). It was even more special to me as I had sketched this image while we were visiting the "Musee des Merveilles". You are not allowed to take pictures so sketching was the only option. What was annoying to me was the one in the museum is an inverted copy of the original and they left out two lines at the bottom. Nonetheless, thanks to Charle we saw two wonderful sights. However my time was limited and it only made me realize that I need to return to spend more time to learn and visit both valleys. What an amazing area. For three hours I was in heaven seeing these amazing gravures!!
As you can see from the pictures this place is like home. Another interesting historical fact is this region was originally part of Italy until 1947 when it then became part of France. There are several buildings and bunkers that line the mountain ridges and the ones remaining in this area were used for hospitals during the war as one of the front lines was here. There were several areas where they stacked stone walls up to store ammunition and other materials during the war. Even in this remote region the reminders of war is clear as it is in Kodiak along our shores. Our tour ended and reluctantly I started back down the mountain to Casterino to meet the girls and head back to Nice on the curvy roads. This area is worth a visit if you are interested in history that has not been changed to suite someones own interpretations.
We headed back towards Nice around 1:30 and we decided, instead of driving back on the freeways through Italy, to take the 'back roads' in the mountains. It took double the time and there were hundreds of literal hairpin turns. The girls loved and giggled for half and then slept through the other half as we literally took a wrong turn. We ended up on a very back road that had only five cars parked along side the road as we drove back to Nice. Eventually made it home nervous, happy wrecks. Amazing scenery!
We must not forget: just before we left, Friday night, we had over three teenage Icelandic girls from Sven's language class for dinner... did you know that they have 13 Santas in Iceland (one of them has long fingers..? )? And each of those mornings they put presents in their shoes and if they are bad they get.... potatoes. Also there is some holiday (instead of halloween, which Eilidh asked about) in February where kids go to stores and sing songs and get candy. None of the girls remembered why this happened... All three of these very smart girls feel rather lost about what they will do after language school since their country is bankrupt. Even though all of them know 5 languages (that was their major) they are all thinking about jobs such as waitressing, etc. Sad.
The remarkable and improbable view out of our window.
Hanging out in the courtyard in front of the flat.
Walking home...
The best swimming beach (VilleFranche) was a 15 minute bus ride away....
From Castle hill looking over the Old Town "Vieux Nice".
The day we forgot her swimsuit.
Eilidh gets engrossed in Harry Potter.
