Finally to the Alps !

From St Andre les Alpes, we drove the the ski resort of Valberg with the intention of climbing some mountains. Valberg is located in the Parc du Mercantour as part of the Alpes-Maritimes, the part of the alps that ends up in the sea. The drive took us through the gorges du verdon which are some of the most beautiful I've ever seen. The water is incredible the mountains just fall into those mountain lakes, it's breathtaking. 

After exiting the gorges we drove through the town of Guillaumes (represent.) 

and stopped for lunch there, preparing for the dreaded climb to Valberg. 8 (we counted them before) sharp turns on a twisting road taking us from 700m to 1800m in 18km. The plan was to camp at the pass of Lespaul and the next day hike up the Mont Mounier at 2800m.

The climb went well until the last turn, we were in the city, large flat roads no problem and again the issue with the 2nd gear came back. after a good minute of panic everything came back to normal and we went on our way. We arrived at the parking of the Pass and the wind was ever so present, 1800m cold wind. After considering whether we should stay or not we decided to drive the 2km back to the city and camp on the dedicated camper area which was sheltered from the wind flat and within walking distance of the shops & bars. We slept super well and didn't even feel cold at night!

The next day the weather wasn't the best to go to the top of the mountain, the summit was clad in thick clouds and it seemed that we wouldn't be able to see anything from there. We opted for another hike that departed from Valberg and took us to the summit of the skiing area of Valberg at 2055m. The hike was beautiful and pretty quiet since it's off season. And above all we saw a Marmotte. We had our lunch on a vantage point on top of a mountain overlooking the Valley of Guillaumes, it was incredible. 

After the hike we went shopping for eggs and other basic things and rested a bit while looking at our impecable view over the mountains. The next day we were to drive towards Sospel, through the cote d'Azur, Nice, Monaco, Menton etc. and try to get the car checked for that 2nd gear issue.

We were quite nervous to drive through at least half dozen lacets even though it was down hill. Thankfully, we've made it to Nice all intact without incidents, and decided to drop by Renault Trucks to get some expert advise regarding our second gear issues. Unfortunately the guys over there were fully booked till mid October and couldn't provide us with much information without taking the van in the garage. Luckily earlier on during the drive we've spotted a RV shop and service facility and decided to drop by, maybe they'd be able to help us. Again, we were quite lucky, because their technical guys knew how to help us and since their workshop manager was off because it was Friday the atmosphere was very relaxed. Good lads. They basically told us that if we changed the gearbox oil to something significantly thicker (from 75W80 to 75W140 -aka butter-) it seems like it's actually helping us, ...well at least for time being.

I'm not going to lie, the drive from Nice to Monaco, which is predominantly up the hill, was quite stressful and butt clenching (pardon my french). The view though was absolutely spectacular. A couple hours, several traffic jams and few angry and anxious drivers later, we've made it to our campsite in Sospel. Oh boy, what a day that was! We were both absolutely exhausted and wanted to have some dinner and sleep. As stressful as the day was, we decided to treat ourselves to a proper dinner at the restaurant, well we had only pizza each, but it was delicious as hell. Sosepl is an ancient city in the Alps was built around a bridge that crossed the Bevera which was an important passage on the Salt trade route between Turin & Nice.

The next day we were off Casterino a small two or three houses village above Tende, there was supposed to be a accrobranche park that we wanted to check out, we tried to call to see if it was open but nobody replied so we decided to just drive up to figure it out by ourselves. As we arrived, they called me back, "yeah we closed for the season last weekend we will re-open in May"...ok. Nevermind. The road up was tough, windy turns after windy turns, narrow roads, everything you can love about mountain! Since we could accrobranche, we decided to go for a hike. Casterino is located in the valley adjacent to the Valley Of Marvels. It takes its name because it holds the largest quantity of open-air stone writings in Europe. It's also crazy beautiful. We decided to hike from Casterino to the nearest refuge as anything else would have taken us more than 1 day. It looks like there are some really amazing overnight hikes in that area, in valleys where no civilisation can be seen. 

We saw the stone writings, marmots, the beautiful colours of autumn. It was a great hike. We were back down the valley by 14h and then started the drive to Italy ! 

We took the road to the tunnel of Tende it was an interesting experience the tunnel is very obviously ancient inaugurated in 1882 and is a bit tiny for modern cars so they have alternate circulation, but since the tunnel is pretty long, you have to wait at a traffic light for 25 min before being allowed to go in. The drive down from the tunnel to Turin was extremely uneventful as the area between Cuneo and Turin is flatter than the north of France. We stopped in the suburbs of Turin in a camp ground and had our first shower in 5 days... A god send. 

Tomorrow we head to the lake of Como, hoping the weather clears out a bit as it's been hazy/foggy for the last couple of days.