Birthday trip - part 4

We saw a lot of beautiful little towns on our trip, but Moustiers-Sainte-Marie was our favorite. 

Even our hotel room was lovely!

The town is built into the side of the mountain, and you get this lovely view of the surrounding farms and countryside.

The only problem with being built on a mountainside is that it meant a lot of uphill walking. So much uphill walking!

I don't know if you can tell very well in this picture, but there's even a waterfall right in the middle of the town.

You can just see on the right hand side of this picture the church at the top situated underneath a suspended golden star that is the symbol of the city.

The flower-lined balcony in this picture is the restaurant where we ate dinner: Les Santons. We ate at a lot of good restaurants over the course of two weeks, but this one was our favorite of the entire trip.

 The ambiance and service were delightful

And though I normally don't photograph my food, I made an exception this time.

Best desserts of the trip, too, which is saying something!

 The final between France and Portugal was that night. Apparently Moustiers-Sainte-Marie has a Portuguese population! There was much rejoicing in the street at one end, and great sorrow at the other.

 Moustiers was still pretty in the morning! We got up early again (surprise!) so that we could walk to the church at the top and also make a quick stop in a shop to buy a nativity scene composed of mini Santons (handmade figurines from Provence). I love it, and I can't wait for Christmas so I can set it up!

Moustiers-Sainte-Marie is only about 10 minutes away from the Lac de Sainte-Croix, which is the edge of the Gorges du Verdon.

We rented a kayak and paddled our way into the gorge.

It seemed like over and over again on this trip I was pinching myself, amazed at the beauty that exists in this world!

 The gorge is named for the color of its water (vert = green in French), and while most of the water was a brilliant turquoise, at one point it turned almost olive.

Can we laugh together a bit at how gigantic Chase's legs look in this picture compared to his head? Ha!

 I hadn't kayaked in awhile, and I really enjoyed it!

 Shot of the Verdon Gorge from above.

Maybe it's because I grew up by the rather gray Pacific Ocean, but I am just in awe of all the cool colors that water can be.

After kayaking we drove the narrow, incredibly winding, more than a little terrifying road (ask me sometime about the bus we came across during a particularly tight turn) past Castellane where we met up a with a guide we'd hired to go canyoning. I'm not sure if they do canyoning in the US, but it's basically following a river in its natural course through a canyon. That means they fit you out with a padded wet suit and helmet and you swim, hike, rappel, jump, slide, crawl, and rock climb your way through it. We have no pictures of this since we were immersed in water much of the time, but it was really fun! Chase did a much more intense canyoning experience in Switzerland a few years ago (which I was too chicken to do), so we opted for a more beginner level canyon to ease me into it. This was a good choice. A lot of the jumps and slides still made me nervous, but I was at least able to make myself do all of them! And our guide was fantastic at helping my timid self while also showing Chase how he could make it more challenging and adrenaline-filled.

I also learned that I am super grateful for traditional toilets when I came across this technology in Castellane.

We then commenced our final long-distance drive of the trip and drove through (once again) absolutely stunning scenery on our way to Bourg d'Oisans, at the base of the Alpe d'Huez.

Chase was thrilled to fulfill a life-long goal of biking the Alpe d'Huez.

 Huez:

 Breathtaking view

You've already learned from my experience riding e-bikes in the Luberon that I am no cyclist, so I spent the morning at our hotel and then drove to visit the Chateau Vizille.

Our hotel:

 View from our hotel parking lot

Unfortunately, the chateau I went to visit was closed at the time because the exhibit inside (it's currently being used as a French Revolution museum) was on loan...or something to that effect. It would have been helpful if the website had indicated this fact, but at least I had a pleasant drive!

So I drove back, picked up Chase from the bike shop, and then we made our way to the train station in Lyons, where we said goodbye to our trusty car and boarded the train to Paris.