Photo Blog 001: Mercantour National Park and Saint-Martin-Vésubie, France
Photo Blog 001: Mercantour National Park and
Saint-Martin-Vésubie, France
Regions explored: Saint-Martin-Vésubie, Mercantour National Park and Belvédère, France
Sensory Photo Blogs - These blog posts are designed to transport you to the places we’ve visited and explored, I’ll try to include some specific details to bring your senses into the reading experience. I’ll keep the text short on these new style blog posts and let the images do the majority of the talking, thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoy my new photo-blog series.
Fortunately for us, Ashley had a work event taking her to Cannes, France so we did our best to head to France early and chase some amazing hiking moments in the southern French Alps. Here’s a quick visual recap of our time exploring and hiking in Mercantour National Park while staying in the cozy town of Saint-Martin-Vésubie.
Sensory Memory: We sat by this pristine lake at the entrance to the National Park with a blanket down, sipping wine, eating a fresh baguette from the mornings market, sampling different cheeses and cured meats we collect through our time strolling the ancient streets of Saint-Martin-Vésubie, France. I remember the wine tasting better here, and it was cheap too… I remember we got this one cheese that made Ashley’s entire hiking pack stink, I couldn’t eat that one but we did get some primo-cured meats, what a treat. Best pre-hiking snack… wine, baguette and cheese, give it a try or take some with you on your trek.
Our magical encounter with our first refugio was during our first sunset hike in France… we come over this hillside and off in the distance is a hut glowing in the golden light, tucked on the mountain side. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to stop at this one but opt to go check one out the next day: Refugio de Nice. What an epic visit… a cold beer and an espresso mid hike while backpackers all around enjoyed a stay at this picturesque refuge. Read more and check out my IG reel below…
Exploring the streets of Saint-Martin-Vésubie, France: fresh baked bread, street markets, the local town cat, espresso, fresh fruit, tiny french cars, friendly store owners (who dealt with our terrible french) and mountain views.
Each day we woke up and went into town… strolling a weekend farmer’s market, grabbing fresh fruit for our hikes, enjoying a buttery croissant (or two or three) and people watching. Sipping on an espresso sitting in their town square I felt like I was sipping in a moment of what it would be like to live in this cozy French mountain town.
Into the National Park we went, super lucky we had open trails and not a soul in sight, when we came up on this pristine alpine lake… we each took a dip, laid out in the sun naked and probably ate more french cheese. Here in Colorado, it’s hard to find a lake as quiet as this one… I’ll try to include a few AllTrails links at the bottom of these posts so if you find yourself in Saint-Martin-Vésubie or Belvédère you can check them out.
We spent the majority of our days hiking and exploring the national park just up the road from us, and at night it was into town for an incredible meal… Saint-Martin-Vésubie lies close to the France-Italy border so much of the cuisine has been pleasantly inspired by Italian cuisine. Ashley found us the coziest, perfect AirBnB built into the side of this mountain, just outside of Saint-Martin-Vésubie, France - you’ll most likely be seeing this image again on a future photo blog post, I captured quite a few of this amazing little Air Bnb.
Here are a few of the trails we explored and wanted to check out during our time in SMV:
Lac de Trécolpas
Lac de la Fous, Refuge de Nice & Lac Long - Refuge de Nice was a real treat! We will be returning to explore more of these amazing mountain huts in the Italian Dolomites…
Check out a few of my other Instagram posts from exploring Saint Martin Vesubie, and follow all my adventures over on IG!
Stay tuned for more photo blog posts coming soon, catch you next time and see you out there.!
-Frankie ( @fr33water)