Exploring the Old City

We started our walk of the 'Old City' of Briancon at the Car Park at the very top. It was another beautiful sunny day in the Alps, we have been so lucky with the weather here.

We walked down the main street passed restaurants, clothes shops, souvenir shops, all still closed because nothing opens until 10 am. There were no crowds, we had the streets almost to ourselves. I'm not sure how I would cope with the working hours here. 10am start, yay. Two hour lunch, yay. The thought of heading back to work at 2pm and working until 7pm, not so sure. I usually am feeling like a bit of a Nanny Nap at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Haha.

Down the very centre of the main street runs a small open drain, a garguille, that was built into the street to help put out fires, apparently much of the town was destroyed by fires in the 17th century. At the bottom end of town it is high enough to see over the whole 'new town'. You can see all the forts on surrounding hills and we could even see our accommodation.

The town was waking up as we slowly zigzagged our way through the streets and alleyways back up to the top. As has become our ritual in these villages, we slipped into the town church. Yes, I know, the most non-churchie couple, but inside these old churches is amazing. This one did not disappoint.

Yesterday afternoon we were chatting in Franglais with Veronique, and she was telling us about Nevache a place in the Ecrins National Park where you can walk for miles along the Durance River. We decided to check it out in the afternoon.

The road was flat, nice for a change, and ran beside the River for most parts. We passed through tiny hamlets one with a one way road as the main street. Some of the residents of these houses walked out the front door and stepped straight onto the street. One had a pedestrian crossing leading to their front door. We stopped a couple of times to take some photos and dip our hands in the icy water. The water was so clear a smelled so fresh. It was here I picked up my pet rock.

It was a lovely stress free way to spend our last day in the Alps. We look back at how scared we were with the detour we took to drive into Briancon. We have to take that same road again tomorrow, but I suspect it will be so much easier now that we have experienced the "cols".