Lake Sainte Croix

ALPS IN PROVENCE

Three mighty groups of mountains mark the presence of the Alps in the territory of the Natural Park of the Verdon.

These are the Montdenier (1750 m), the Chiran (1905 m), and the Mourre de Chanier (1930 m). Long rocky ridges divide up the lands set high in the mountains.

The valleys, crowned by vast pastoral mountains, are planted with small villages in which life hangs on with ingenuity and where the force of the sun reminds us that the Mediterranean is but a stone's throw away.

It's the realm of stars, one of the last places where, far from pollution, the sky still lets us see its celestial bodies.

Along the route of the Alps, the Verdon has hollowed out a valley where farming, traditional activities and market towns, as well as two reservoirs, Castillon and Chaudanne, are concentrated.

The town of Castellane, full of centuries of history, is built at the foot of its famous rock. It houses many tanneries and today another treasure, the fossils of the Geological Reserve of Haute-Provence.

Farther north, Saint-André les Alpes, once an important center for the clothing industry, is one of the stops on the Train des Pignes between Nice and Digne.

THE LAKE SAINTE-CROIX

Mirroring the sky and the past.
The Verdon possesses a huge lake: a 2200 hectare turquoise expanse of calm waters set there like a big mirror of the the sky on one side and an engulfed agricultural valley on the other.

The Sainte-Croix dam was built in 1974. It led to the disappearance of the village of Les Salles du Verdon, reconstructed above the water level, separating the lakeside villages, once linked by four bridges.

Among them, sleeping under the waters, are the Roman bridge erected to the south of Sainte Croix on the Roman road from Fréjus to Riez, and to the north the medieval bridge of Aiguines. Protected by coastal law, the lake of Sainte Croix is above all a reservoir providing fresh water for a majority of the population of Provence.

In the center of a preserved and beautiful landscape, water sports can be practiced twelve months of the year, complementing the older activities like the crockery industry in Moustiers of which the fame has not diminished since the 17th century.