Photo : Mathieu BROSSAIS / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
les Gorges du Guil
The Guil gorges are a spectacular defile in the Hautes-Alpes that lets you pass from Guillestre, in the Durance valley, to the Queyras valley. The D902 departmental road there is a corniche road cut into the rock, above the tumultuous waters of the Guil, built between 1905 and 1911. After a suspension bridge that carries an irrigation canal and a few hairpins, it follows the wall for several kilometres and passes through four tunnels.
The longest, that of the Roches Violettes, is 320 metres long. It was built in 1949, after a cliff collapsed in the floods of 1948 and swept away the road over several hundred metres. The road then reaches the Maison du Roi and its hydroelectric dam, before emerging into the Queyras and its fortified village of Château-Queyras. Paths such as the Rue des Masques run along the cliffs and offer views over the gorges, over the fortress of Mont-Dauphin, the work of Vauban, and over the village of Eygliers.
