via alpina d59 d60 | Via Alpina 2013

Woke up 6:30am. No animals noise or disturbance during the night.

Temperature did not drop very much at night…Leaving forestry shelter at around 7:50am.

Was off the Via Alpina so took a short cut by the road to reach down Bollene Vesubie.

Lots of canyoning action is going on in that valley.

Nice view on the Bollene Vesubie village..arrive 8:20am and left 8:45am.

Arrive Belvedere at 10:30am, meet an old lady picking roses in someone else garden (got a video footage of her stealing the roses 🙂 )

The garden owner were supposed to come in soon she told me and she likes the smell of the roses.

Will hear later that roses should be gone now and rhododendrons should be blooming but late spring this year…very late

In the Belvedere village, also bumped into the refuge keeper of refuge de NICE on the GR52.

Belvedere is on GR52A (variante)

Refuge de NICE keeper told me that at the refuge de NICE @ about 2200m, they still have 1.5m of snow…old snow from the winter…therefore only people with skis were coming…no hikers

In Belvedere which is very nice village also ate some really good goat cheese.

The goat cheese maker (Patrice PETRONI) got a #1 gold prize in a Alpes maritime (south east france) contest. Congratulation to him and thanks…loved your cheese man 🙂

Today has been very hot and warm since the morning. Leaving Belvedere around 12am

Luckily the trail goes not very steeply up in the woods.

Meet 2 germans girls hiking the other way (from Berthemont to Belvedere)..videotaped the encounters…they looked really exhausted when i meet them nearby Belvedere.

Later on shortly after reaching thermal place Berthemont les bains, took a swim in the fresh water coming down the mountain.

There was enough to soak in fully in a little tub of fresh water..really good and refreshing.

After that had to climbed up steeply to reach the highest place of the day at about 1300m.

Great view of the vallee de la Vesubie from there. Can see Berthemont, Belvedere and also Bollene Vesubie in the background.

Was there at 4:30pm.

Arrive St Martin de la Vesubie 980m after a long last 5-6km of flat walk @ 6pm

On thing interesting in that village is that there is a flow of mountain water running in the middle if the streets…really cool

The gite “les champouns” owner where i will stay for the night told me that winter time when she was a kid and when “la rigole” (water stream coming down the street) was frozen…they used their class backpack to go down hill and slide down all the way to the bottom of the village.

The gite “les champouns” is off St Martin about 2km away (been told 1km on the phone but it is actually at least 2km and going up) on the road up to Venanson.

The view from there is great..price is 18euros no breakfast but cooking gear available…and YES there is a shower with hot water and a comfy bed. Only me tonight so good rest ahead..tommorrow saturday and it is fully booked already.

Walking time today under hot sun : 7h30

Distance walked : 31km

Tommorrow morning will take a different path than the Via Alpina to get off St martin de la Vesubie and reach St Dalmas. There are many hiking trails around St martin de la Vesubie and also base camp for trail runners.

A lot more to explore…may be next time 🙂