8th September 2022

We were camped just outside the town, on the main road which bypasses the town. Opposite the campsite entrance was a fuel station with some very cheap diesel at 1.73 Euro. Cheap for a rural area. We then heard that Total was cheap everywhere and was well over 30 cents cheaper than its rivals, even on the motorways.

Moustiers St Marie is on the Western entrance of the Verdon gorge and is considered one of the most beautiful villages in France, it was our day to explore and see if this was correct.

During the night there was thunder and lightning followed by rain. A wet and soggy awning in the morning, but bright sunshine. We walked into the town, mainly uphill along foot paths and narrow roadways. I would be scared to drive along some of these narrow roads with seemingly impossible turns to enter narrow garages built into the rock cliffs. It was a pleasant enough walk to enter the village. For the lazy there was one of those small road trains that ran every 30 minutes. This intimated the village was popular…

Moustiers St Marie was hosting some sort of celebration, tables and chairs had been positioned outside the church. Amplifiers and staging were also delivered. There was a village ‘bring your own celebratory lunch’ taking place. Lunch, well the music went on until eleven in the evening.

We spent the morning and early afternoon wandering around the village. Very touristy with lots of people walking around. Restaurants and cafes doing reasonable business, most seemingly taking cash and not cards. Again the quandary, we only wanted a beer and a sandwich for lunch. Sandwich was fine, there were shops selling them, but where for the beer, as all the bars/restaurants were set for lunch. We did find one bar willing to sell a beer. We had a couple of beers and some baguettes, the heavy baguettes made with a mixture of grains, not the wheat and air ones. These were a tasty and relatively cheap lunch.

There were also several sculpture exhibits scattered around the village, some looking impressive against the blue sky, others looking very odd.

I took a hike up to the chapel situated between the two cliffs where the star was suspended. During the night of the celebrations this star was lit by a spotlight. Must check to see if this is the case tomorrow, Friday. After climbing the 262 steps of the Way of the Cross, on the flank of the hill, you reach the chapel that overlooks the village. The seven oratories which in the past marked the path were replaced by the fourteen Stations of the Cross in 1860 and were decorated with ceramics made by Simone Garnier. The Chapel Notre-Dame de Beauvoir was built in the late XIIth century on the remains of a Marial temple erected in the Vth century. It unites a Romanesque style and Gothic influences from the XVIth century. Like other Alpine chapels, the vocation of the sanctuary of Notre Dame de Beauvoir is the “suscitation”. In the XVIIth century, stillborn babies came back to life for the duration of their baptism. Their souls could then go to Paradise. The Chapel of Notre-Dame de Beauvoir was listed as a historical monument in 1921. Ok, ok – enough from the guidebook.

We walked back down to the campsite, and vegged out during the late afternoon. During the evening after sunset, I took a few photographs of the village at night. The village was in full flow with music from their celebration.