Tag Archives: National Park

VALLÉE DES MERVEILLES – MAGIC MARVELS IN THE MARITIME ALPS

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Along the shores of the Lac des Merveilles with the Baisse de Valmasque shrouded in clouds beyond.
Along the shores of the Lac des Merveilles with the Baisse de Valmasque shrouded in clouds beyond.

High in the southernmost reaches of the French Alps, lies the small slot-like canyon of the Vallée des Merveilles – the Valley of Marvels.  The name came about from the many thunderstorms ranging through this uppermost section of the Maritime Alps which contain the last of the alpine peaks in France reaching up to 3,000 meters in elevation heading south through the range towards the Mediterranean Sea.  Those same ‘marvels’ led men centuries ago to create marvels of a totally different sort, literally thousands of pictographs allowing us a small peek into life during the Bronze Age.

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MAGIC OF WALKING ON THE GRAND RONDONEE 52

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Looking north from the top of Mangiabo on GR 52.
Looking north from the top of Mangiabo on GR 52.

Grand Randonnée 5 represents France’s premier alpine adventure running from Thonon-les-Bains on the south shore of Lake Geneva to Nice on the Mediterranean. Many choose another alternative for the final third of the route, switching GR 52 for 5 just south of the Col de Larche. This route – known as the Balcon du Mercantour – stays much higher than GR 5 and offers much more drama as it marches southeast and then south to finish on the Mediterranean at the boat harbor of Menton-Garavan.

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ICELAND IMPRESSIONS – ÞINGVELLIR MAGIC MET ON THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

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Church and Prime Minister's summer home at Þingvellir.
Church and Prime Minister’s summer home at Þingvellir.

A recent trip to Europe ended up flying us through the far northern island country of Iceland.  I had wanted to visit this country since hiking about in the tundra and mountains of Norway back in the early years of the 1980s. The vast treeless moors of the Hadangervidda and the Jotunheimen served as magnificent introductions into the immense beauty to be discovered in the subarctic. Iceland figured to take the natural beauty up a notch or two. The tundra also provided a bridge between magical nature with the political past at Þingvellir.

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