We had a good evening at Ville-Vieille. There was a drink before dinner in the garden. The garden had an eccentric entrance- through a window and down a ladder. After re-negotiating that (best not have too much to drink), there was a good meal with good company. It was Bert’s birthday (one of our Dutch friends) so we had birthday cake, well Birthday Apple Crumble anyway.
This morning we retraced our steps back to Fort Queyras…
…from where we had to go up 1000m (one Scafell Pike in our measuring system) to the Col Fromage. The steep densely wooded valley didn’t look too promising as a walk, but we dutifully started to plod up through the forest. It was quite steep at first, and having watched some tennis on Sunday, we wished we could have ball boys and girls handing towels to us every couple of minutes. The angle eased but the trees continued, providing shade but preventing a view.
But when we did get above the tree line the world opened up spectacularly, with mountains all around and a multi coloured flower carpet to walk through. The pictures don’t really do it justice.
Another hour and a half’s walking brought us to the col. There was no cheese at the Col Fromage, nor indeed any cows, just the views.
On a 2 dimensional map Ceillac is very close to the col Fromage, but in the 3 dimensional world it is a long way down.
We arrived rather wearily in Ceillac and had to find our Airbnb apartment. The directions we had been given assumed we would be arriving by car, so we had to walk to the main road and then walk into the village looking at the road signs, refraining from holding a pretend steering wheel. Thankfully the village is small and it didn’t take too long.
We have an attractive little apartment, which is good because we are going to have a little holiday and have 2 days off from the long walk here.
Crossing the alps with ease (GR5 and Via Alpina) 