Driving in the French Alps
Having now been in the Haute Provence region of France for ten days, I can safely say that some of the D roads are nothing you are likely to experience in the UK.
The motorway and nationale roads are pretty much the same and as you would expect, it is the country roads between the Alpine villages that take your breath away at times because you are basically faced with a narrow road, soft verges and falling rocks, oh and if that wasn’t enough, did I mention sheer vertical drops on one side sometimes up to 800 metres in height to the bottom of the mountain.
How sane people drive regularly on these roads, I will never know. I can honestly say that having driven on the “road” from the Col D’Allos to Barcelonnette and made it without coming off, I have never felt so frightened on a road before. It is the first time my hands have been shaking whilst driving. Arriving in Barcelonnette, it felt like I had cheated death in some way.
But before you shrug your shoulders and say “easy, not a problem”, may I suggest you tackle the D908 road from Thorame Basse to Annot first, just to make sure you are up to the challenge because although narrow and very high in parts it can actually be described as a road. The D908 stretch from Col D’Allos to Barcelonnette is nothing more than a mountain pass with barely enough room for two lanes for the most part that is only open about four months of the year. There is tarmac on the surface and a bit of a wall on the mountain side edge in parts, but there are some suspicious looking holes on some of the corners that do nothing for your confidence. What makes me laugh is the road signs that tell you it is a tight bend; like you are really going to go straight on in the style of a James Bond baddie when all you can see is blue sky straight ahead!
There are probably far more challenging roads in the Alps than this one, so please feel free to comment below but I think I’ve had my fair share in the last few days so enough is enough.
If you still feel up to the challenge, then please be my guest, you have been warned.
This entry was posted on Tuesday July 22nd, 2008 at 1:35 PM and is filed under Things to do. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.
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