We left Chamrousse somewhat late in the day. We’d identified a couple of Aires around Gap & Sisteron that might be useful stopovers on our way South. There is an unfortunate lack of Aires in this area so we were keeping our fingers crossed, especially as the ones we could find on ProMobile didn’t have great reviews.
The Route Napoleon runs from Vizille – South of Grenoble – down to Cannes in Provence, following an often perilously twisty course through several lumpy bits of France. We drove the entire length of it back in 1982: after a lengthy training course in Grenoble, I’d booked a holiday cottage in a miniscule village called Gigaro, about 10km to the South of St Tropez. That was in a Ford Cortina 2l Estate with loads of spare power. This time, we were only going to a point to the South of Sisteron before branching off towards the Camargue. And in a huge van with very little spare power. Slightly worrying, as the map showed the bit through Vizille as being unsuitable for large vehicles. It all worked out in the end as “large vehicles” turned out to mean over 26 tonnes. Even we don’t stretch anywhere close to that.
We reached Gap. Gap has two aires: The first one turned out to be a supermarket car park, inhabited by a large number of darkly dubious types. A quick about-turn and search for the second one. Yet again, her up the windscreen messed us around, taking us down a tiny road on exactly the wrong side of the railway line, before the road ended in a no-entry sign. I may have mentioned it before, but doing a 3-point turn in narrow roads is not our vehicle’s best selling point. Despite having a reversing camera, I managed to snap the end off our waste tank drain-pipe, clipped so conveniently to the underside when I hit the bank. Bugger.
We found the other Aire: It had 4 motorhomes in it and was full. There were two other vans seemingly queuing for a space. So we headed further South.
We reached Sisteron at about 7:30pm and found the Aire at the side of the main road. There were 4 places available, one of which was taken up by a Spanish truck. We grabbed the best space of the rest.
It wasn’t a peaceful night. We were right next to (i.e. 2 metres away) from the main road, and it was very busy. We walked into Sisteron to take a quick look and found it to be yet another of those wonderful places you could easily spend a couple of days in. The aire / car park was perched on top of the old city walls. About 30 metres vertically below us was the ancient road crossing the river, and 200 m down the road was the ancient portal (now removed) through which the old road used to pass under the cliff to reach the town.
Wonderful old part to the town, with slightly Moorish appearance, very narrow streets, and a citadel perched high up above the town. The next morning, we went on a hunt for a boulangerie and spent some time in the market buying fruit. The market was causing havoc for the traffic through the town, and we had still to drive through the town!
Tired, with lack of sleep we headed further South, branching off the Route Napolean at Chateau-Arnoux St-Auban.