Faces of the Verdon.

Text by Jean-Claude Barbier, translated by Jean-Baptiste Roman

Its life pours in the middle of solitudes. It’s the fool of theVal d’Allos. He woke up at dawn to drink the water of the solar source. A neighbourof wolves and eagles, he carries solid pieces of sky in its wake. Then, it clears the mountains from Colmars to Saint-André. It doesn’t deny itself the pleasure of jumping.                                  Then, it tastes the green fjords at the bottlenecks of Castillon and Chaudanne, where battalions of gulls gather. It goes on now, on the plateaux of Canjuers and Valensole, between war and peace, meandering through the thunder of cannons and the memory of 500.000 almond-trees crushed by lavender farmers. Pushed by the Mourres, turned away by the Citadelle des Cadières, it crushes chaos, insinuating its blade at the heart of Sainte-Croix.                                                                                                                                                                         At this moment, it turns into a sea with no tides, ashamed of its new shores. Like the Atlantide casting away its children, misguided to the point of overflowing its own sources, like a mad god eating his own parents. But does the Verdon dies, with this self pregnancy? No. Its loses its young flesh, vampires suck its green blood. Muzzled and moribund, its sleeps under the eye of the griffon vultures of Rougon. I saw them whirling with their immense wings bordered in white, squads looking for the right winds. Kings of the gorges and lakes, they recycle death.                                                                                                                                                                                         At the Gorges of Baudinard, narrow and cut by an axe into the milestone, it fills the giant moats of an invisible castle. There, it is absolutely strange, neither stream nor river, indefinable and silent like a tomb in the middle of junipers.  Underground light shines in its eyes.                                                                                                        These gorges don’t breathe anymore, in apnea for years. How did they look like before the Lake of Sainte-Croix? Tumultuous or quiet ? What was the Verdon like before the lakes ? Populated by malicious mermaids shattering Gorgones and Melusines on its sharp rocks, simple dream of a lazy Poseidon ?                                                        Here and now, it doesn’t flow anymore, it spreads. Even under the sky, it seems to be underground. The vast solar stream has forgotten its origins. Its childhood memories fade into its past before the gorges, when it dwelled in the karst and dug grottos for our ancestors. He became light-proof. He is on this Earth as if it wasn’t here yet, or not here anymore, a phantom of itself. From the sky of Allos where it comes to life, to Gréoux where it dies, the stream is less vigorous like an angel cast away from heaven, but he kept its colour, its emerald soul. Its water in the low-gorges is opaque, the surface of another world. It’s coagulated blood, green lava. The Verdon is colour before water, liquor rather than liquid, the real green. It’s the lukewarm source of spring leaves. When nature needs sap for the flowers to blossom, it comes and draws here. When it needs green to color oceans, nature takes the pigments here. When green diamonds are needed, it freezes this water. When mythology needs mermaids, it comes here and fishes them and when the painter needs 50 shades of emerald for its ponds and lilies, he plants his brushes in here.                                                                                                                                                   But if its colour allays like a medicine, its opaque depth scares. You’ll find a weird peace in this water which ceases to exist, hiding the infinite mystery of void. Too much peace leads to anguish. Going green might lose yourself. When the Verdon is a mirror, it seduces, but also scares when it turns into a dark-green chasm under an everlasting shade. If Orpheus went down in this green night, would he come back ? Then men untie their flanges, it runs away from the gorges, regains power and plays the savage lake : isn’t it wonderful when it lies quietly in Cadenon in a reeds’ dream where a swan’s white points out ? But quietness does not last very long. No freedom for the Verdon, it has to be muzzled soon enough. No more cavalcades ! Quinson, Esparron and Cadarache put the nail in the coffin of the solar stream. Deprived, a thousand times crossed, pumped, looted, bargained, it loses itself in the desert of the Durance nearby the Désirade, What a name for a place to end its life !                          I know the dream of the Verdon, it’s an ocean dream: it has always sought an estuary. A stream born in the heavens, it always wanted to marry with the deep sea, to feel the fluttering of tides. A stream of freedom, it was destined to become immense, an unaccomplished vocation. But it also knew that man needs water. So, as generous as always, it offered itself to our insatiable thirst for life and dreams.

Walk in the region of the Verdon

Short or long strolls

Haut Verdon

• From the refuge of the col d'Allos : la tête de Sestrière

• From Allos : lake of Allos, Rochecline
• From Colmars : Ratery Forest, Lakes of the Encombrette, lakes of Lignin
• From Beauvezer : Gorges of Saint-Pierre
• An ADRI topo-guide proposes many paths in the haut Verdon (GR)

Moyen Verdon

• From Saint-André : hamlet of Courchons
• From Castellane : The Cadières de Brandis, Robion, the hole of Chalvet
• From Moustiers : Poissonnier’s hill - Vincel and the path of Courchons (pseudo Roman-way).

Gorges du Verdon

• Path of the Imbut
• Path of the fishermen
• From La-Palud-sur-Verdon : Path of Blanc-Martel (over-frequented, avoid in the summer), path of Bastidon.

Bas Verdon

• From Saint-Martin-de-Brômes to Grèoux via the plateau
• From Gréoux-les-Bains : stroll by the Verdon, Our-Lady of the Eggs
• From Quinson : low-Gorges and Sainte-Maxime.

The GR4 (Méditerrannean Sea-Ocean), going from Grasse to Royan, crosses the Alpes de Haute-Provence through Entrevaux, Castellane, the Gorges du Verdon (path of Blanc-Martel), Moustiers Sainte-Marie, Riez, the plateau de Valensole, Gréoux-les-Bains, Manosque, the Gorges of Oppedette. The section Castellane –Chasteuil - Rougon – Point-Sublime offers splendid sightseeing spots on the Gorges. Crossing the vast spaces of the Plateau de Valensole, no matter if it’s spring or fall, eases consciousness.

Meet

See the program of discovery acticities in the Parc Naturel Régional du Verdon : ‘’Welcomed by the Park’’. The Park also proposes a collection of data sheets on hikes. Each year, the ‘’Caminades du Verdon’’ take place mid-May for hikers seeking for discovery. The brand ‘’Produits du Parc’’ is a trademark of authentic products.

More informations on the website of the Parc Naturel Régional du Verdon

See the accommodations labelled Gîtes de France in the Parc Naturel Régional du Verdon