When Jane wasn't reading last night, we did some planning. We decided to forego the intended stop at La Spezia for the Cinque Terre and plotted an approximate route down through the centre of Italy. Kept from the original plan was a stop at Ai Cuivin in Castiglione Tinella. This was almost directly on route when we planned to cross into Italy over the Col de Montgenevre but now involved a small diversion north.
Our route into Italy took us a little further towards Briancon until we crossed the Lac de Serre-Poncon lake and turned off the main road at Savine-le-Lac taking a minor road towards Barcelonnette. I highly recommend this road to fellow travellers. The road climbs a little way giving wonderful views over the lake in both directions. Then we came across a totally unexpected sight, Les Demoiselle Coiffees. We had seen a photograph of this natural formation but didn't know where it was. White spires of rock rose from the mountainside topped with large dark rocks. My immediate thought was that is was a volcanic formation – white pumice and black 'bombs' that had been ejected during an eruption. The hard rocks would protect the soft pumice from erosion by rain, so my thinking went. Needless to say, I was totally wrong! The Ubaye glacier deposited clays, pebbles and large boulders and this was gradually eroded by rain and wind, the boulders protecting some of the underlying soils. The rain falling on the lower land between the boulders is absorbed and rises up the columns by capillary action where it evaporates from the sides of the columns. When this happens many different salts are deposited and this cements the clays and pebbles into a strong, often hollow, tubular structures capable of holding huge weights – the 'Grand Moron' boulder shown above weighs about 800 tonnes and has a volume of 300 cubic metres.
This area is well worth a visit and there are campsites, an aire in Savine-le-Lac (on the Barcelonnette road, not in our guide) and many wild camping opportunities.
We continued on the road, descending back to the lakeside and then following the Ubaye river through Barcelonnette to the Col de Lardeche and the Italian border. We found this an easy way into Italy, the road was not challenging, a relatively gentle incline to the pass at very nearly 2,000m. The other side of the pass, the Colle della Maddalena was steeper with quite a few hairpin bends but these are always easier when descending. We had made into Italy without any clutch problems, in fact the clutch was much better than it had been for a long time – probably since January 2008!
Fairly easy driving took us to Cuneo and then north-east round Bra and Alba before turning east into the heart of the wine country near Asti of Asti Spumante fame.
The Asti vineyards are quite spectacular – steep hills, covered with vines form long narrow ridges where medieval villages and scattered hamlets perch. All of the roads, narrow and often with grass growing up the middle, run along these ridges joining the dispersed houses. It was along such roads that we travelled and the sat nav delivered us to the entrance to Ai Cuivin.
Ai Cuivin is one of those rare motorhome locations – a privately-owned free aire complete with electricity, toilets and showers with a restaurant attached. We came here in November 2007, struggled to find the site but were so glad that we succeeded. We were greeted on arrival and booked a table for Sunday lunch.
It was 24°C when we arrived at 16:30 and we sat outside until sunset enjoying the views over those lovely vineyards.
The man from one of the motorhomes that arrived after us sat outside the van polishing his shoes. Having finished that, he got out the cleaning spray and proceeded to clean the windows that were already sparkling and he then inspected the remainder of the van to ensure that there wasn't a speck of dirt on it. So much for the alpha Italian male! If only I could speak Italian, I would have suggested that he continued on ours – that would have kept him happy for hours!
Photos: The amazing formations of Les Demoiselle Coiffees; 'Le Grand Morgon' – the block on the right weighs approx. 800 tonnes; A view clearly showing the columns supporting one of the blocks; Lac de Serre-Poncon; The village of Castiglione Tinella as seen from Ai Cuivin.
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