Twenty kilometres of road cut into the cliff above a torrent: two waterfalls at the roadside, a village of violets, a confectioner who has been crystallising flowers since 1949, and a 15th-century Dance of Death in a village church. The addresses I give my own passengers, each with its phone number, its website and directions.
Three tables held in the MICHELIN guide's selection along a single road, plus the inn at Pont-du-Loup. That is a lot for the bottom of a valley — and it is because Tourrettes-sur-Loup has quietly become one of the best places to eat in the back country.
Both are on the Grand'Rue of the hilltop village, fifty metres apart. The village is pedestrian.
Down in the valley, on the gorge road. Both have a car park, which is rare here.
🚕 I'll drive you there — and I'll come back for you when the meal is over. The gorge road is narrow, cut into the cliff, and it does not go well after a lunch that has run long.
+33 6 58 27 93 12The D6 and then the D3 climb beside the Loup torrent for some twenty kilometres, cut into the cliff, with tunnels and stretches without a crash barrier. It is one of the finest roads in the department — and one of the narrowest. Both waterfalls are at the roadside.
From Pont-du-Loup towards Gréolières. Passing another car is difficult in places, there is no lighting, and the phone signal comes and goes.
🚕 I'll drive you there. The full loop of the gorges is about fifty kilometres from Vence: half a day, and there is neither bus nor train.
+33 6 58 27 93 12Three villages mark out the gorges, all on the same road and a few kilometres apart. Two are perched, the third sits at the bottom of the valley, at the entrance to the gorges.
Both pedestrian and cobbled. In both cases the parking is below the village.
At the bottom of the valley, where the road leaves the plain and enters the cliff.
🚕 I'll drive you there. The three villages are on the same road, a few kilometres apart: you take them one after another in a day, without ever hunting for a parking space.
+33 6 58 27 93 12The Loup valley grows and transforms flowers: violets at Tourrettes, roses, jasmine and verbena at Pont-du-Loup. Both visits are FREE and last half an hour each.
They are five kilometres apart, on the same road.
🚕 I'll drive you there. Both visits are free and last half an hour each: exactly the sort of stop you skip if you have to turn the car round on a gorge road.
+33 6 58 27 93 12