Starting at Les Courmettes
Crossing a herd of goats
On July 19, 2008, David and Daniel (who both contributed photos to this page; David's photos are the ones with an asterisk following the caption) drove up to the Domaine Les Courmettes, parked the car, and started to hike up to the Plateau Saint Barnabé; we wanted to follow the GR 51 ('GR' stands for Grande Randonnée and denotes major hiking trails. See this page for more information) to the hamlet of Saint Barnabé which we had seen on signposts but never visited. Getting to the plateau (see here to find out what it's famous for) took longer than we had anticipated, and when we had practically crossed its entire length we still couldn't see anything resembling a hamlet. Because we had plans later in the day, we were forced to make our way back down the mountain.
Intrigued by the missing hamlet, Daniel drove up the Col de Vence a couple of weeks later, when David was back in the States, and found the place—if three or four houses can be called a place. As it turns out, we had been less than ten minutes away from Saint Barnabé when we turned around. Because of the shape of the terrain, one cannot see the hamlet until one is practically in it. In fact, in the third row of photos from the bottom, the house in the background of the image on the left is the same one as the one in the picture before it. While our inability to find Saint Barnabé is perhaps a little embarrassing, the hamlet itself is, as you can see, not exactly spectacular. In this case as in so many others, the journey is definitely the reward: an easy hike, highly recommended to everyone.
Click on any image to see a larger (1500 x 1000 pixel) version!
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Starting at Les Courmettes |
Crossing a herd of goats |
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Local flora * |
Morning sun in the trees * |
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Looking across the Gorges du Loup * |
Zooming in on Gourdon * |
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Walking through the woods... * |
...with the sunlight... * |
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...streaming through the trees. * |
The old stone fountain |
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Courmes and the Gorges du Loup |
The tiny village of Courmes * |
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Making our way up the mountain... |
...to the plateau. |
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The Saint Jean-Baptiste oratory |
The Plateau Saint Barnabé... |
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...is a barren... * |
...almost desolate landscape. |
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David using the Nikkor 18-200... |
...to zoom in on a ladybug... * |
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...and a butterfly. * |
That's how far we got on July 19 |
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Back on August 4 |
The Chapelle Saint Barnabé |
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The path to Saint Barnabé |
The lone bell... |
...and the chapel's interior. |
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The main part and... |
...the rest of Saint Barnabé. |
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This page was last modified on November 26, 2014
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