FR26.16 Lac de Sainte-Croix & Gorges du Verdon

As we mentioned, we split our stay at Lac de Sainte-Croix between two different locations and, after spending a couple of peaceful nights and exploring Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, we moved to the “proper” campsite.

By that we mean a larger, more commercially focused campsite. In this case, however, that didn’t make it any less beautiful. Quite the opposite actually. They had done a fantastic job with the layout and decorations. One particular highlight were the showers. They looked like a normal shower block, but had no roof.

Upon arrival, the host drove us around in a little golf cart and showed us all the available pitches we could choose from.

Pitch number 41 would become our new home.

We didn’t wait long before heading down to the beach.

“We” didn’t feel like cooking. (Okay, okay, you got me – Kathrin does the majority of cooking, but this evening we wanted to go out…)

Instead, we headed into the tiny village just above the campsite.

It really is tiny, but it has a weekly market with fresh produce and everything else you might need, a grocery store and several restaurants.

Most of those restaurants, however, charge rather silly prices.

€7 for a 0.33l beer, for example.

This is definitely what you would call a tourist trap.

Apart from the direct access to the lake, we had also chosen this campsite because it offers easy access to the Gorges du Verdon.

And so, on Friday, we drove parts of the spectacular canyon road, stopping at several viewpoints that offered absolutely jaw-dropping scenery.

At one of those viewpoints we heard somebody repeatedly calling out the name “Anja”.

When we reached him, he explained that he had been waiting there for his wife for about 45 minutes. Since he was afraid of heights, he didn’t dare walk around the corner to look for her himself.

So we did.

With our hearts beating a little faster than usual, we hoped we wouldn’t discover anything terrible.

Luckily we didn’t.

Instead, we discovered that there was a second path hidden from view.

We convinced the man to return to the car park with us as we assumed – and sincerely hoped – that his wife would be waiting there.

Thankfully, that was exactly the case.

It turned out they had simply taken different paths to the viewing platform and accidentally lost each other.

It was genuinely heartwarming to watch them hug for what felt like forever, both crying with relief and happiness after finding each other again.

Sadly, we know far too many people who would have immediately started arguing about whose fault it was instead…

With the very satisfying feeling of having done a good deed, we returned to the lake and rented a paddle boat to explore the canyon from the water.

We paddled as far as visitors are allowed to go and naturally couldn’t resist jumping in for a swim.

To our surprise, the water felt significantly colder than at “our” beach, which shortened the swimming session somewhat.

The Gorges du Verdon are simply incredible and an absolute must-see if you’re visiting the area.

For the remainder of our stay we made sure to jump into the lake whenever possible: during breaks, after work, in the evenings…

Basically whenever we could.

The water was the perfect temperature and the perfect remedy for the constant 33+°C heat.

The lake and the surrounding area very quickly became one of our favourite places in the world.