Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Roc

Wednesday 23 May 2012

We had a bit of a lazy morning - didn't have to board the bus until 10:00 am to head to Castellane, about a 20 minute drive from Vergons.  Castellane is just south of Lac de Castellion and at one end of Gorges du Verdon, which we'd see later.  

The first thing we did after arriving is explore the market.  It was small as we were early in the season, before most fruits and veggies are available.  However, there was plenty of the typical foods of the region - i.e. wine, cheese, sausages, and some fruit.  Michel helped Tim and me find some good cheese.  25e. later we had my contribution to the gite's supply of food.  The vendor even threw in some garlic sassage.  I believe the cheese was Beaufort Cheese - it was really good!

Following our time in the market, we began the trek up the small mountain to the Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Roc (Our Lady of the Rock).  This would make three hikes up small mountains in as many days.  I was sore, but it was well worth it.  Breathing in the altitude while hiking was the hardest part.  

Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Roc

One of the stations

As climbed the stone stair trail/road there were a few markers for saints, and then the Stations of the Cross were available for those making a pilgrimage.  If I would have been by myself, I would have made the climb a pilgrimage and participated in the stations, but as it was, we just kept climbing to the top.  It seems highly appropriate to make the difficult journey to the top a pilgrimage.  His suffering united with the suffering of those making the challenging climb.  I knew there were still people using this as a pilgrimage as there were flowers left at some of the stations.

View of Castellane from about half way up

The higher we climbed, the more the spectacular the view.  The day was clear and we could see for miles.Chapelle Notre-Dame du Roc was a spectacular commemoration to Mary.  The entire interior was completely covered with paintings, plaques, and statues.  I did not want to use my flash, so of course none of my pictures really turned out as it was so dark inside.  I could have sat in there for hours just soaking everything in.

Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Rock

After  exploring for a while, I decided to check the area for a geocache - if I was going to place one, it would be near the top of the rock.  Sure enough there was one in the city - GC1WTZR - it actually started down below, but lucky for me it sent cachers up to the chapel.  At the chapel we (David and myself) attempted to answer questions, such as dates of paintings, year of the city, height of the rock, etc.  We needed these to do some calculations on where the final container was going to be.  Once we thought we had the correct coordinates, we rejoined Bryce, who was guarding packs while we flitted about getting information, and set off.

According to our calculations, the cache should have been .6 mile toward the ruins.  Awesome - this was the direction we wanted to go anyways as this is where all the others in our group headed earlier.  We followed the "Tour de Roc" path and found a large stone wall from about the 9th C. building.  After exploring it we continued down the trail.  The GPS said the geocache was straight ahead.  However instead of the trail continuing to go straight, it began to head down the mountain, taking us away from the cache.  

Cullen, Nathan, Bryce, Muaamar, me, and David

Typical Geocaching Adventure

As we did not have a trail map, we continued along the way, hoping that it would turn back to the direction we needed.  But as we dropped down below the arid tree line along a mountain creek into woods that felt very much like Minnesota (minus the killer mosquitoes) we just kept heading down, down, down.  With the recent rains the trail was muddy and a little slick.  The creek was high in some spots, but we made it through without falling in the mud! (A huge bonus for me as many know of my ability to fall on flat ground.)  

When we reached a road at the bottom, we were still .4 mile away and we decided to give up and return to the top. Apparently I cannot read in French as well as I thought I could and must have gotten a wrong number in the coordinates.  Oh well, the journey is the best part of the adventure!  

We re-climbed the mountain - me waking through the creek instead of trying to hop over.  I was wearing my chacos, so it didn't matter if my feet got wet.  Bryce managed to hop over, but David took off his shoes and socks and waded right on through, washing his feet off on the other side.  When we finally reached the top again, we tried once more to find a path to the cache, but the only other path lead straight into a brier patch.  I'd had enough fun by that point, and officially gave up and headed back to the city of Castellane.

More about Castellane in my next post.

As always for more photographs go here.