Gorges du Verdon: A Gentle Guide to Europe's Grand Canyon

There are places that make you stop talking. The Gorges du Verdon is one of them. You park at a belvedere somewhere above La Palud-sur-Verdon, walk twenty paces to the railing, and the ground simply falls away — pale limestone cliffs dropping hundreds of metres to a river so improbably green-blue that first-time visitors ask whether the photographs have been touched up. They have not.

The canyon lies in Provence, straddling the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and the Var, roughly two hours inland by car from either Marseille or Nice. It runs about 21 kilometres, reaches some 700 metres deep, and narrows in places until the sky is only a ribbon overhead. Europe has no deeper canyon.

What makes it such a rewarding destination after sixty is not the famous long trails — those are genuinely hard work — but everything else. The great views here are reached by road. The water is explored in silent electric boats. The villages are small, the air smells of box and thyme, and a very good day can consist of three viewpoints, one lakeside lunch and a long sit in the shade.

A little history

The rock came first, and from very far away. The limestone of the gorges formed on the floor of a warm sea in the Upper Jurassic, roughly 150 to 135 million years ago. Much later, as the Alps were pushed upwards, the Verdon river began sawing down through that limestone, and the canyon we see today was largely carved during the Quaternary period.

For human beings it remained, astonishingly, a blank on the map. Through the nineteenth century the deepest stretches were thought impenetrable. Only local woodcutters went down on ropes, hunting box-wood stumps to be turned into the hard wooden balls once used for boules. An attempt to paddle through in 1896 was abandoned because of the violence of the current.

The canyon was finally traversed in 1905, by the schoolmaster of the village of Rougon, Isidore Blanc, together with the famous speleologist Édouard-Alfred Martel. Their widely reported descent introduced the Verdon to the rest of France, and the long trail through the bottom of the gorge still carries both their names. The great panoramic roads came later — the Corniche Sublime on the south bank dates from 1947 — and it is those roads that make the canyon so unexpectedly easy to enjoy today.

The river Verdon seen from the floor of the gorge.

What to see

The canyon has two rims, each with its own scenic road, joined at either end by bridges. You do not need to do both in one day — and you will enjoy it far more if you do not.

Point Sublime and the Couloir Samson

The most celebrated viewpoint of all, below the cliff-top village of Rougon, at the eastern entrance to the canyon. From the car park it is a walk of around ten minutes on a stony path to the railing, where the view opens onto the Samson corridor and the great Escalès cliffs. The drop is unfenced in places, so keep well back from the edge. Rougon itself, just above, is a lovely short stop with a café and wide views.

The Route des Crêtes

The north rim's spectacular loop, climbing out of La Palud-sur-Verdon and running for roughly 23 to 24 kilometres along the very lip of the canyon, with around fifteen belvederes. Most are a handful of steps from the parking spaces, which makes this the single best outing for anyone who would rather not walk far. Allow around 1.5 to 3 hours depending on how often you stop — and stop often. Part of the loop is signposted as one-way, so simply follow the arrows rather than your instinct.

The Corniche Sublime and the Balcons de la Mescla

The south rim road (the D71) runs about 24 kilometres from the village of Aiguines, over the Col d'Illoire, towards Comps-sur-Artuby. Its highlight is the Balcons de la Mescla, a pair of balconies looking almost vertically down onto the confluence of the Verdon and the Artuby. Nearby, the elegant single-arch Pont de l'Artuby crosses its ravine some 180 metres above the riverbed; there is a small parking area and you can walk out onto the bridge itself.

Lac de Sainte-Croix and the Pont du Galetas

At the western end the canyon empties into a long turquoise reservoir. The bridge at Galetas spans the exact spot where the gorge opens out, and the view from it — cliffs on both sides, boats drifting in and out of the shadow — is one of the images people carry home. Below the bridge there is a pebble beach, gentle water and the main boat-hire bases.

The Verdon Gorge seen from Point Sublime.

Seeing it gently: boats, drives and short walks

There is no cable car and no tourist train inside the canyon, but the comfortable options are better than that suggests.

On the water. To protect the lake, petrol engines are banned on Lac de Sainte-Croix; only electric boats, pedalos, canoes, kayaks and paddleboards are allowed. The electric boats need no licence, take around six or seven people, and are blissfully quiet. The classic outing is to cross the lake, pass beneath the Pont du Galetas and glide a short way between the cliffs — allow something like two to three hours there and back, with time to simply float. Boats are hired at Galetas and from the lakeside villages. Getting in and out of a small boat does mean one step down from a pontoon; staff are used to giving a hand.

By car. The two rim roads are the heart of a Verdon holiday. Both are well surfaced, but they are mountain roads: narrow in places, with bends, modest barriers and a habit of making the passenger clutch the door handle. Drive them in the morning, before the day-trip coaches and the heat haze, and let faster cars pass at the pull-offs.

Easy walks with big views. The belvederes of the Route des Crêtes need only a few steps. From the village of Sainte-Croix-du-Verdon, the short Sentier des Muletiers gives almost uninterrupted views over the lake on an easy path. The lakeside promenades at Les Salles-sur-Verdon and Bauduen are flat and shaded. Be aware that the famous canyon-floor routes — the Blanc-Martel and the Imbut trails — involve long descents, ladders, tunnels and several hours of rough ground; they are magnificent, and they are not gentle.

A scenic railway nearby. The narrow-gauge Train des Pignes runs about 151 kilometres between Nice and Digne-les-Bains in roughly three and a half hours, through tunnels, over viaducts and across high Provençal country. It does not enter the gorges, but it stops at Saint-André-les-Alpes, in the lake country just east of the canyon, and makes a wonderful sitting-down day.

The Gorges du Verdon from the Belvédère du Tilleul.

A day trip nearby

Moustiers-Sainte-Marie is the obvious and entirely justified favourite: a village of pale stone wedged into a cleft in the rock, with a star strung on a chain between the two cliffs above it and a long tradition of faience, the fine glazed earthenware still sold in the workshops along its lanes. The heart of the village is walkable but sloping, with cobbles and steps; the chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Beauvoir above it is reached by a steep zigzag of stepped path, best admired from below unless you are feeling strong. Park in the lower car parks and climb only as far as you wish.

The Valensole plateau, a half-hour or so to the west, is lavender country — vast corduroy fields that colour up from around the third week of June and are usually at their most intense in the first half of July, before harvest. It is a drive, not a walk, and all the better for it.

Quinson, downstream at the lower gorges, has a large and well-presented prehistory museum in a modern building by Norman Foster — level floors, cool rooms, and a good answer to a hot afternoon.

The mouth of the gorge seen from the Pont du Galetas, at the head of Lac de Sainte-Croix.

Honest advice for comfortable travel

• You will need a car, or a driver. Public transport into the canyon is sparse and seasonal. If driving mountain roads no longer appeals, base yourself in Moustiers or on the lake and book a half-day guided minibus tour of the rims.
• Choose your base for flatness. Moustiers is beautiful but built on a slope; Les Salles-sur-Verdon, Sainte-Croix-du-Verdon and Bauduen sit level beside the lake and are kinder on knees. La Palud-sur-Verdon is the closest village to the Route des Crêtes.
• Belvederes are not all fenced. Many have low walls or none at all, with loose gravel at the edge. Stay a good arm's length back, especially in wind.
• Heat is the real difficulty. July and August afternoons regularly reach the mid-thirties Celsius and there is very little shade on the rims. Go out early, rest after lunch, carry more water than you think you need.
• Expect bends and few barriers. Travellers prone to car-sickness or uneasy about heights should sit on the inside of the road — the right-hand side when driving the Route des Crêtes in the signed direction.
• Winter closes doors. The Route des Crêtes can be shut after snow or ice, and many hotels and boat bases close from autumn to spring. Check locally before setting out.
• Boats need a small step. The pontoons at Galetas and the lake bases are stable but low; electric boats have seats with backs, canoes do not.
• Mobile signal is patchy in the canyon. Take a paper map or download your route before you leave your hotel.

What to eat

This is upland Provence, so the cooking is herb-scented rather than seaside. Lamb is the local pride: Sisteron lamb, raised in the Provençal hills and protected by its own label, grazed on wild herbs and usually served simply, grilled or roasted with garlic and thyme. In the villages above the gorge you will also find daube, a slow beef stew with red wine and orange peel, and the robust old speciality pieds et paquets, sheep's trotters and stuffed tripe, for the adventurous.

From the plateaux come lavender honey, almonds and nougat; from the oak woods around Aups, downstream, come black truffles, celebrated at the town's winter market and its little truffle house. Goat's cheeses are excellent, often rolled in herbs. Add tapenade, Provençal olive oil, a dish of fresh trout, and a bottle of Coteaux Varois or a dry rosé from the Var, and you have the whole region on one table.

Practical note: in the smaller villages, lunch is served early and finishes early, and many kitchens close for the afternoon. Eat at noon rather than at two, and book ahead in summer.

Getting there

Our verdict

The Verdon is one of the rare great landscapes that asks very little of your legs. Nearly everything that makes it famous — the depth, the colour of the water, the sheer white walls — can be taken in from a railing a few steps from a parking space, or from the padded seat of a silent little boat drifting into the canyon's mouth. The effort it does ask is of a gentler kind: an early start, a slow drive, a willingness to stop more often than you planned.

Go in June or September, sleep beside the lake, keep your days short and your lunches long. Drive one rim in the morning light and the other on another day. Hire the boat, even if you think you would rather watch from the bridge; the moment the cliffs close over you and the engine makes no sound at all is the moment most people remember for years.

It is, quite simply, the most beautiful place in Provence that you can enjoy without walking far — and that is a rarer thing than it sounds.

The cliffs and turquoise water of the Gorges du Verdon.

“Twenty paces from the car, the earth opens and the river runs green a thousand feet below — Provence keeps its biggest secret in plain sight.”

Photo credits

• Gorges du Verdon panorama: Ianaré Sévi, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Gorges du Verdon River from Bottom 0364: Dirk Beyer, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Verdon Gorge from Point Sublime: Pimlico27, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Gorges du Verdon depuis le belvédère du Tilleul: Mathieu BROSSAIS, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Verdon Gorge 8: kallerna, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Gorges Verdon 2: Einaz80, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons