Hello everyone,
I just spent a couple of days visiting the Gorge Du Verdon. The Gorge Du Verdon is the second biggest gorge in the world!

There is a town just before the start of the gorge, called Moustier. In Moustier, there is a big waterfall. There is a hotel right next to the waterfall and I have a feeling that those rooms are a little noisy! While exploring the village, we walked up over 500 steps to an old church overlooking the village. While we were walking up to the top, I saw some wild, stinky mountain goats standing on top of a 20 meter cliff drop.

The church at the top of the hill was very beautiful with lots of carvings on the walls. From the cliff face above the church, to the the top of the cliff on the opposite side of the valley, there hangs a large metal chain above the village. Hanging from the center of the chain is a large golden star. This was placed by a knight in the 13th century after returning from a successful crusade. It's still there today.

We went to a pizza restaurant for dinner. The pizzas were very good. The hotel we stayed in was nice because there was a good view of the gorge.

In the morning we headed off for the actual gorge. We stopped at all the lookout points whilst driving the windy road, and at one, there were some men doing rock climbing and absailing down into the gorge! The cliff face that they were absailing down was a sheer drop of over 300 meters. On one stop we walked down a path for an hour to the very bottom of the gorge, ate morning tea by the river and the walked up again! It was great fun.

At the top of the gorge we continued to drive until we reached the most eastern end and a village called Trigance.

When we arrived I was really surprised because our hotel was actually a medieval castle!! Inside there were a lot of swords and armour hanging up on the walls, and our room was decorated with medieval furniture and tapestries. The castle was built in 1220.

For dinner we ate at the castle restaurant and I had chicken and chips. Dad had pigeon and foie gras!

The next day we headed back to Moustiers via the road on the other side of the gorge. We stopped at at town called Aiguines. It is a beautiful town overlooking a big lake. We had an ice-cream and lay in the grass in the park whilst reading books.

The Gorge du Verdon is a magnificent natural wonder of France!

Au Revoir :-)