CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Out of Riez, one way: 88 km, roughly 1 h 41 in the saddle. The stops in between: La Palud sur Verdon, Rougon, Point Sublime and Route des Cretes. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 18 km this is Gorges du Verdon, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Seen from below, Moustiers-Sainte-Marie looks like it has been wedged into a crack in the cliff. A pair of limestone crags rise above the village, and between them hangs a star on a long chain, a golden ornament that has been renewed many times since the legend of a knight who vowed to hang one there after returning safely from the Crusades. The story is probably more charming than historical, but it gives the place its signature image, and you can see the star glinting from the road on a bright day.
Read the complete Moustiers Sainte Marie write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Moustiers Sainte Marie is where the day begins. Next is La Palud sur Verdon.
La Palud-sur-Verdon is a small stone village of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, perched on the north rim of the Verdon Gorge, and it is where riders usually decide how they are going to spend the rest of the day. Behind it are fields of lavender and thyme, in front of it is the biggest canyon in Europe, and the village has just enough cafés, shops and bakeries to keep a person fed while they work out the details. It sits at about nine hundred metres, so the air is clear and in the morning it can be properly cool.
Read the complete La Palud sur Verdon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Palud sur Verdon comes up 9 km in. Next is Rougon.
Rougon is a handful of stone houses piled on a rock above the Verdon, with the shell of a medieval castle on top and a view that justifies the whole detour. You come to it on the D952, the north-rim road that climbs from Castellane, and the village sits just off the highway at about nine hundred metres, a short climb away from the traffic. Most visitors drive past on their way to the viewpoints. Those who stop find a quiet street, a small church, and cats asleep on warm walls.
Read the complete Rougon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
19 km in you reach Rougon. Next is Point Sublime.
Point Sublime is the viewpoint where the Verdon Gorge opens its mouth. Standing on the rail, you look down some two hundred and fifty metres into a narrow slot where the river runs a vivid green between pale cliffs, with the walls closing in toward the Couloir Samson, the first real pinch in the canyon. Édouard-Alfred Martel, the French explorer who first mapped the gorge in 1905, is credited with naming the spot, and no one has since suggested a better word for it.
Read the complete Point Sublime write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Point Sublime, about halfway. Next is Route des Cretes.
The Route des Crêtes is a road built to be looked out from. The D23 loops for about twenty-three kilometres around the northern side of the Verdon Gorge, carved in the 1970s along the very lip of the cliffs, with a string of belvederes where you can pull over and look straight down for several hundred metres to the green river below. It is a one-way route for much of its length, which makes the riding simpler: no oncoming traffic on the blind bends, only the question of whether the bike in front is going slowly because of the view.
Read the complete Route des Cretes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Route des Crêtes sits at 38 km, late in the day. Next is Aiguines.
Aiguines has four pepper-pot towers and a very good view. The village sits on the southern rim of the Verdon Gorge, in Provence, and its château, a seventeenth-century country house with a square plan and four corner turrets topped with coloured glazed tiles, looks like something from a children's book. It is private, but the façade can be seen from the village. Aiguines was once known for the turning of boxwood, with local craftsmen making wooden balls and other pieces on lathes, and the old workshop traditions are remembered in a small museum.
Read the complete Aiguines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 88 km.
Moustiers Sainte Marie → La Palud sur Verdon is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Palud sur Verdon → Rougon is 7 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Point Sublime → Route des Cretes is 4 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Route des Crêtes → Aiguines is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.