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Thursday, Sept 6th, 2007
Dinner yesterday night at I Re Magi was excellent, and thanks to Carcassonne we managed to stave off tiredness until around 9:30 when we went to bed. The night was marred slightly by a softly banging door, which I fixed by using a blanket to keep it open, and a snorer in the bunkroom, who I suffocated with another blanket. Useful things blankets.
Just kidding: I used a pillow.
As expected, both Chris and Mel felt that with a long day to Briancon coming up on Friday, it would be wiser to take the shorter route to Nevache over the 2420m Col des Thures, which we duly did.
The only problem was that, although it was a very nice hike, short turned out to be really short -- 2.5 hours -- and so we arrived at our hotel before 11AM. Fortunately the staff at Les Chalets d'en Ho were very kind and accommodating, giving us a couple of rooms straight away and promising the third by midday. We decided, however, to walk about 2km up-valley to the center of Nevache to have lunch rather than wait around.
It was another beautiful day (blue sky, sun, etc., etc.) and the valley and its villages are quite lovely. Read the website entry for this stage if you are interested in more background, but the short version is that this is a valley that is rebounding from almost complete depopulation and is now doing very well. Most of the old buildings have been renovated and many, for the most part tasteful, new ones have been built.
In sum, Nevache and its surrounding hamlets have a very nice feel to them, and both the lunchtime restaurant (Aux Creux des Souches, or something like that) and our hotel were excellent and welcoming. The upper valley (which we would not have seen even if we had taken the long route) is supposed to be quite beautiful, so this is a place to come back to.
In the afternoon we had a sauna and then split up to do our various things -- Mel probably to snooze, listen to music, and watch TV, Christine to read a book, and me to handle email and write this.
Tomorrow the weather is expected to be a little warmer and a little less windy (the Mistral is blowing today), but otherwise with the same cloudless blue sky. Perfect for the long ridge hike (up to 2600m) that we plan to do into Briancon. Of course, first we have to have dinner, perhaps play some Carcassonne by the fire, and then sleep in our charming and well-appointed rooms.
Just another rough day on the H2H.... :-)
