Barcelonnette to Saint-Martin-d'Entraunes via Col de la Cayolle

June 23, 2025

As I sit here in our comfortable room, a nice lunch eaten, showered and laundry done, listening to the rain, I think the plan of short days is going to work really well—even though most of those short days include a lot of elevation gain. The elevation gain is never as much as indicated by the RWGPS routes (today, for example, 1148 metres recorded vs 1464 expected).

The early start to beat the heat combined with the short days means that we should be done in time to have a proper lunch, as we were today and on our arrival in Barcelonnette, and be settled in our accommodation when the afternoon thundershowers roll through. Fingers crossed!

I hadn’t heard of Col de la Cayolle until I started planning this trip and happened upon the Route des Grande Alpes à Vélo website. it isn’t spectacular compared to some of the other Alpine passes and it’s never been used in the Tour de France as far as I know, but it was a very pleasant ride.

Not far out of Barcelonnette, we started climbing gently up the Gorges du Bachelard. The more serious climbing started after Bayasse but the grades were never excessive. Nor was the traffic, even on a Sunday. We saw many cyclists, quite a few motorcyclists, and perhaps a chapter of the French Alpine Club. Not alpinists or mountaineers, but owners of Alpine sports cars. I’m not very familiar with them and a little research shows they are a French brand that ceased production in 1995 after being acquired by Renault but the A110 sports car was relaunched in 2017. As Ferraris are mostly red, Alpines are mostly blue.

One of the many bridges over the Bachelard

In the Gorges du Bachelard There’s another bridge well above thr waterfall.

Almost at Col de la Cayolle, feeling small in the landscape.

Zoom in on the sign on the right. Very clear!

Much of the descent was along the “Sources of the Var” with meadows full of wildflowers.

It was around here that we really started noticing all the bikepackers going up. Unlike the Race Across France participants, these had a similarity about them. For instance, essentially all of them were wearing a reflective vest. At first I thought it was a commercial tour where you carry your own kit, but there were so many! Then Al noticed a vehicle with “BikingMan” on it. A quick search later yielded that this was the first day of BikingMan Alpes-Maritimes, an ultra race covering 1000 km and 22,000 m of climbing—with a time limit of 120 hours. Not my thing!

These butterflies were very colourful when flying and pale when perched with their wings together. I didn't have the patience to try too long to get one in flight with the orange wingtops showing.

We saw the butterflies when we stopped to look at this view.

This outcrop of dark shale(?) was very noticeable.

There’s our hotel! Easy, since Saint-Martin-d’Entraunes is very small.

We arrived at our hotel shortly after 1, with official check-in at 3. I’d booked half board since there isn’t really anywhere else to get a meal here, but we could also get lunch!

There was an entrée, a salmon-and-shrimp spread accompanied by pickles and toasted brioche. Yum! No photo.

The main course was crouis, a local specialty pasta that’s handmade once a year for a feast day. Our host makes it regularly for his guests.

Chocolate mousse for dessert and shortly after we polished that off, our room was ready.

Looking back up the street we came in on. Not sure if this place has another street other than D2292.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in our room, getting cleaned up and writing our posts (me here and Al on Strava). Then 1900h came around and it was time to eat again!

Entrée. Same as at lunch except a basket of bread instead of a slice of toasted brioche.

Main course: roast beef with potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, roasted potatoes, and vegetables. Al had some of mine in addition to his own.

Dessert: a variety of cheesecake, I think.

Now it’s time to sleep it off!

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Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 1,108 km (688 miles)

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