Mountains! Roads! Carsickness! Route Napoleon Part 1

Today is the day! We're going back onto alpine roads and carving up through the Pre-Alps on the first part of the path taken by Napoleon. Today's drive is about 5 hours without stops which makes it the longest day so far!

After breakfast and a swim we're out the door...goodbye hotel!

A short 40 minute spurt up the road and we're back at Vence (we're doubling back on ourselves a bit) for a lunch stop and to pick up some souvenirs!

And then we're off into the mountain, first section is called Col De Vence!

After a few stops for long distance photography we got into the very twisty bits! 3 hours of twisty roads on the D4085 took a bit of a toll!

And we arrived at our stop for the night - Sisteron; the town sits on the bank of a wide river with high hills on both sides and a fort protecting the tiny bridge below.

Luckily there's a pub overlooking the bridge if you get thirsty whilst exploring!

We stayed in a gorgeous little hotel - unfortunately as it had no fridge we'd eaten all our perishables for afternoon snacks / dinner - awkwardly when we went to the hotel restaurant for dessert we were told they don't do 'just dessert'... despite there being only one other table of guests!


Not to worry several restaurant / cafe's along was a creperie who were more than happy to serve us dessert and drinks! The shops themselves are cut into the rock of the mountain!

Full of beer and crepes we headed off to bed, up early the next day we were off to explore the fort before continuing north!