Day 2: Alpine Driving
Jacob and I knew that once we got to Provence, we definitely wanted to at least take a driving tour of the eastern portion known as “Alpes de Haute Provence”. We love the mountains and we could not imagine coming so close yet missing out. So, early on Monday morning we headed out for Forcalquier which is a hill town with a once a month Marche Provencal. While many towns have weekly markets for the locals, some have larger markets with products from all over the region. Since Forcalquier’s large market coincided with our visit, we decided it was a good excuse to make it our gateway to the Alps.
Free parking was simple and easily accessible on the edge of the oldest part of town off of the N100. We arrived some time between 10 and 11 am and there was plenty of parking to be had. We walked up from parking towards the church. There was a brass band playing in the main plaza in front of the church and tourism office. You could hear them in every stretch of the market. I loved the woman knitting baskets as she stood against the wall of the church. We picked up some picnic and dinner staples like cheese and bread before heading back out of town. And, looking back at the end of the week, I enjoyed the couple of kitchen supply vendors that were at Forcalquier. I didn’t see similar vendors at the Apt market and found it slightly odd considering Apt had nearly everything else under the sun. But the truth of the matter is that I bought a nice little paring knife and a solid corkscrew that work like a dream and cost me 7E total. Forcalquier’s market was a close second for the Portland Saturday Market that I grew up visiting frequently.
With GPS in hand, we set out to see the sights on the D900 in Alpes de Haute Provence because when a certain someone is sick and says, “I want to see snow on mountains,” we just tell Jill to send us to Seyne. Is this going slow? You’d think so if you’ve ever drove the D900 north of Seyne. Is it in ever growing circles? Try taking a loop around Lac Serre Poncon and see if you wouldn’t describe it as a loop!
We have been to the Himalayas, the Rockies, and now the Alps. We are never prepared for the sheer awe that these large mountain ranges inspire in us. The small taste we had of Lac Serre Poncon already has us dreaming of our next opportunity to return and head a bit further north of Provence to explore the French Alps.
We learned quite a bit about Lac Serre Poncon just from the view point. There is also a large museum at the crest of the D3 called the Museoscope which has diaramas of nearly every aspect of the dam construction and the towns that were flooded on the valley floor when the lake was created. We were amazed to learn that the power generated by the lake’s dam system provide nearly 50% of the energy used in Provence. This was astounding considering that over 90% of France’s electrical power is generated by nuclear power plants.
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