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Main page Haute Provence

Introduction and Manosque

Riez and Moustiers-Sainte-Marie

Gorges du Verdon

From Castellane to Saint-André-les-Alpes

Train de Pignes (1)

Train de Pignes (2) -Journey

Annot, authentic village

Haute Provence-Lac de Serre Ponçon-Sisteron

Entrevaux-Colmars

Col d'Allos-Barcelonnette

Lac de Serre-Ponçon-Sisteron

Montagne de la Lure

Forcalquier

Digne les Bains 

Take the large D 900 westwards in the Ubaye valley passing LE LAUZET-UBAYE, before arriving at the LAC DE SERRE PONCON.

Lac Serre-Poncon

Follow the southern shores of the lake, which means continuing to drive on the D 900 after the junction with the D 954.We arrive straight on the hamlet of LES CELLIERS and LES ESPINASSES .
For centuries, the Durance was known one of the “three scourges of Provence” (mistral and parliament at Aix complete the triumvirate). I recent years, its unpredictable surges have been harnessed by a series of major dams like this masterpiece, crushing all around with its majesty.

Barrage Serre-Ponçon

We have taken down our hats in Provence for many admirable monuments, sites, cathedrals and churches, all witnesses of the past. So should we bow in admiration for this contemporary realisation: LE BARRAGE DE SERRE PONCON, a powerful dam which is to compare with St.Trophime in Arles or the palais des Papes in Avignon.
Imagine a lake of 1 billion 270 million square meters, 20km long on 2,900 hectares, surrounded by peaks of 2,000 metres and closed by a dam 600 m wide and 110 meters high. The rough climate with great heats and droughts, lasting sometimes for 9 months, the all destructing, howling, ice cold Mistral blowing from the northwest, is a disaster for the soil here, mostly sand and calcareous. Inexploitable without human intervention. The building of this lake and dam started in 1960 and awakened the region out of its lethargy, also enabling the development of touristy activities during the summer on the shores of the Hautes-Alpes. Apple and pear orchards, created over the past 30 years on the newly irrigated alluvial plains, have brought a refreshing vigour o the once ailing economy hereabouts. And hydroelectric power, nicknamed by locals ”houille blanche” (white coal), has brought added prosperity to the region. Nonetheless the Durance remains tortuous, complexed and peppered with islets. It’s one of the few rivers in Provence that contains more than a thin trickle of water in the summer.
To reach our next destination we will have to drive quite a long away, following the Durance, first on the D 900, changing onto the D 942 and N 85 towards SISTERON.
SISTERON, the natural gateway to “smiling” Provence, funny enough, seems hardly Provencal at all. A pretty, tidy town, with entangled roofs, a maze of small streets dominated by a stark towering citadel, facing the rocher de la Baume. Just to the north, the olive trees stop and, to all intents and purposes, you say goodbye to Provence.
A short promenade through town will lead us to the old part with its tortuous streets, descending mostly steep to the river. Some houses are said dating from the 13th century. A mixture of modern boutiques and pleasant old-fashioned shops line the narrow streets, known here as “andrones”. The town’s bakers sell the local speciality, “fougasse à l’anchois”, delectable bread dough smeared with anchovies and sold by the kilo. Butchers display justly the famous SISTERON LAMB, given a fragrant herbal flavour by the wild thyme and the rosemary culled from pastures of the upper Durance valley.
The citadel was built originally in the 13th century and redesigned by Erard (like we see it now) in the second half of the 16th. It’s Sisteron ‘s most obvious crowd puller. As the Germans occupied it in 1945, our own allied bombers took it as target: more than 300 people died and a quarter of Sisteron’s fine medieval town was destroyed. You can listen to a dramatised version of the fateful day, relayed through small speakers dotted around the ramparts. Questionable quality of the sound effects does nothing to dim the poignancy of the tragedy.
Imagine that for centuries, people have passed through this strategically placed gateway, lending it a feeling of lively, if not exactly cosmopolitan, activity.

Sisteron lamb chops

Still standing in the rue de la Saunerie is the now private “Bras d’Or Inn”, owned at the time by the grandfather of the Sisteron novelist Paul Arene. Napoleon is supposed to have lunched here on a misty March day in 1815, when returning from exile from Elba. A bustling market, some light industry and a steady wave of tourists maintain still some atmosphere today.

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