Verdon gorge - north or south road?

[topcat2006]

I did this this year in June - stunning scenery and great roads. Not to busy with camper vans but lots of bikes, often with no sense of what side of the road they should be on.....

 

[MattW]

Thanks for the input everyone - very useful.

After the gorge I'm intending to head south from Moustiers to Toulon via the D957, D43 etc (as pic below). Google maps reckons 2 1/2 hours for this but from previous experience this will be unrealistically optimistic so I'm going to allow the whole afternoon (to include stops and grabbing an early evening meal in Toulon before getting in the queue for the ferry.

So, I've got the morning to play with for the gorge. I guess I'll head west on the southern road and see what time it is when we reach Moustiers. If we've got time to spare we can always do a bit of the northern road and turn back.

Thanks again for the advice

 

[Simon W]

If going for the evening crossing from Toulon, you'll have plenty of time to do a full lap of the Gorge, including the outstanding D23 loop on the North bank, and still take a good cross-country route. It's a comfortable morning ride to do both sides of the gorge as long as you're not stopping every 100m. This route would be good but might be a touch too long – though you could shorten it by using some autoroute in the afternoon - you could play it by ear and adapt if running short of time.

However, if you're only riding one side (and as everyone has already said, the southern side is the most spectacular - it includes a stretch called the "Corniche Sublime", which more-or-less means "excellent ledge") I wouldn't bother going all the way to Moustiers St Marie - just head south to Aups once you've descended to "ground level". It's slightly circuitous... but I'd go this way GMap says it's 5.5 hours, but I'd guess it's more like seven.

Edit: fix link

 

[MattW]

If going for the evening crossing from Toulon, you'll have plenty of time to do a full lap of the Gorge, including the outstanding D23 loop on the North bank, and still take a good cross-country route. It's a comfortable morning ride to do both sides of the gorge as long as you're not stopping every 100m. This route would be good but might be a touch too long – though you could shorten it by using some autoroute in the afternoon - you could play it by ear and adapt if running short of time.

However, if you're only riding one side (and as everyone has already said, the southern side is the most spectacular - it includes a stretch called the "Corniche Sublime", which more-or-less means "excellent ledge") I wouldn't bother going all the way to Moustiers St Marie - just head south to Aups once you've descended to "ground level". It's slightly circuitous... but I'd go this way GMap says it's 5.5 hours, but I'd guess it's more like seven.

Edit: fix link

That's very helpful - thanks Simon

 

[Wapping]

As in post #20, I'm with Simon W, ride both sides in a day and take in the D23 too, as per #9. A bit pressed for time? Get up earlier!

I agree with Simon's advice to maybe lob in some motorway at the end of the day to get to your final destination, if pressed. Too often bods cut short (or miss out) what they really want to do, just because they obstinately avoid a motorway stretch, riding down a not particularly exciting D road instead.

 

[MattW]

As in post #20, I'm with Simon W, ride both sides in a day and take in the D23 too, as per #9. A bit pressed for time? Get up earlier!

I agree with Simon's advice to maybe lob in some motorway at the end of the day to get to your final destination, if pressed. Too often bods cut short (or miss out) what they really want to do, just because they obstinately avoid a motorway stretch, riding down a not particularly exciting D road instead.

Wise words
You're right - doing the good stuff is worth a bit of motorway if necessary.

Thanks to the great advice on this thread, I've plotted out a few outline routes (including Simon's full loop with the D23). I'll upload them all to my satnav and suck it and see when we get there - it might all go completely differently if it's tazzing down when we get down the RN ('no plan survives first contact' and all that ) but at least I've got plenty of options to go with (our only fixed point is a pre-booked overnight ferry to Corsica).

Thanks again

 

[Engineer]

It's all good and Castellane is a great place to spend a night or two.

 

[MattW]

Thanks for all the advice
We ended up staying in Castellane the night before (good call - lovely place), taking the south road and the pretty way south to Toulon for the ferry through Provence. With hindsight we could indeed have done a full loop but I've no regrets about taking it easy and having plenty of stops. We ended up in Toulon very early for the ferry but found a waterfront 'prom' nearby to chill out and wait in the sun.


As everyone has said, the gorge was gobsmacking helped by the perfect weather and pretty quiet roads - well worth diverting of the RN to do it before our ferry to Corsica.

Thanks again for the advice and pointers