Home » Blogs » Keith Sauer » Vercors Regional Natural Park

Vercors Regional Natural Park

Continuing on from Provence towards the Alps, we sidetracked a little to spend a couple nights in the Vercors Regional Natural Park, a beautiful massif above Grenoble, of green hillsides, rocky gorges with rivers, and limestone cliffs and caves. On the way, we stopped at this town below, Serre, for one of the best meals of our trip, a huge plate of lamb roast for Pat and a salmon and local products salad for me, cheese plate, wine and apricot tarts.

Continuing on from Provence towards the Alps, we sidetracked a little to spend a couple nights in the Vercors Regional Natural Park, a beautiful massif above Grenoble, of green hillsides, rocky gorges with rivers, and limestone cliffs and caves. On the way, we stopped at this town below, Serre, for one of the best meals of our trip, a huge plate of lamb roast for Pat and a salmon and local products salad for me, cheese plate, wine and apricot tarts.

Typical scenery in the Vercors region:

Vercors Regional Natural Parc2
]
Vercors Regional Natural Parc3
Below is the village of Pont-en-Royans, with its medieval (1500s) pleasantly pastel maisons suspendues hanging out over the Bourne river (Lucia Durand, you probably have painted them), where there is a nice trail we took to an overlook above the village.

Vercors Regional Natural Parc4
Not in bad condition for maybe 500 years old. Hard to paint, too.

Vercors Regional Natural Parc5

We ended up on a detour that took us for hours on one lane
roads high up in these mountains, and then it began to rain in addition. Even the English lady GPS kept telling us to turn around. We always referred to the GPS as “she.”
Vercors Regional Natural Parc6We came to a side road marked “Le Grotte de Chorance,” which we had been looking for. A nice ranger gave us an umbrella and we started off up a trail.
Vercors Regional Natural Parc7
Soda straw stalactites. The ranger, when asked, told us that there has never been any vandalism, fortunately, given the centuries that it takes for these to form.

Vercors Regional Natural Parc8

Vercors Regional Natural Parc9
An underground river.
Vercors Regional Natural Parc10The “Farm of the Bearded Woods,” typical of the kind of family run small lodging we like to stay in. The “bearded woods”refers to a kind of pine or fir, the side branches of which hang down like moss.
Vercors Regional Natural Parc11

Vercors Regional Natural Parc12

The tree that the commune of Bois Barbu is named after (maybe)

Leave a Reply

Sierra News Online

Sierra News Online