Vauban Forts and Gargouilles

.17/02/2025

Our journey to Briançon was a mere 17km through the other villages that serve the Serre Chevalier ski area. We decided that we definitely like Monêtiers best. The other villages seemed a little more built up, however it may be that the road just doesn’t give passers-by a view of the heart of the other villages.

There was a small misunderstanding of which ‘big’ supermarket we were aiming for but I won the day as the Carrefour has a Revolution Laundry (or is it Wash.Me these days?). Why we didn’t put our washing straight in the machine I do not know, but instead we went and did some shopping. When we came out of the supermarket a British couple in a Hymer had just started to fill both of the washing machines. We decided to come back the next day.

Parking in Briançon

We had looked at two options for parking to visit Briançon. Neither sounded great on P4N or SearchforSites so we decided to park at the one nearest the bit we were interested in seeing i.e.the old town. We were happy that we had. We drove past the other option, by the river and not very far from Carrefour. It looked absolutely fine, but it would have been a bit noisy with the main road to Gap running past and an extra uphill slog to get to the old town.

Up at the top of the town our parking was part of a large car park just outside the northern wall of the old town. The motorhome spaces were crammed together. I’m not sure you’d get your doors open if the parking was full, but we were able to nab a place parallel to the hedge where we didn’t have any such issue. In any case, the parking was never full and people came and went frequently. Perhaps they were just having a short stop off or, in the case of the overnighters, taking advantage of the free overnight parking. It made us question our choice but in the end it was a peaceful place to stop.

Looking down on our parking spot

I investigated the ticket machine to try to make head or tail of the charges. You pay by the hour but only certain hours are charged and the first half hour is free. I think you’re probably meant to ‘continue’ your ticket and pay a small fortune if you want to stay for more than one payable period. I decided to buy a ticket until 9am the following morning and then start a new ticket for the following morning. It saved a few euros and I crossed my fingers that we wouldn’t be picked up on it. If we were I would plead ignorance.

The least said about the public toilet here the better. It was pretty grim and the self cleaning function was not making any headway with the contents of the bowl. We used our own toilet, needless to stay I have no pictures,

Old Town and Gargouilles

We spent the remainder of our afternoon exploring the nooks and crannies of Briançon old town. The steep cobbled streets are lined with tall buildings in vibrant colours with contrasting shutters. Above the shops and houses the twin towers of the Church of Notre Dame and Saint Nicholas can occasionally be spied. It’s difficult to see it in all it’s glory from inside the old town.

Looking up one of the streets to a church tower

Briançon can trace it’s history at least back to Roman times. It’s on the confluence of two major rivers which offer a route through the alps and so must have always been strategically and commercially important. The famed architect/military engineer/all-round polymath Vauban, who designed many fortifications around the country, was called in to re-fortify the medieval town in 1692. He designed the walls and fortifications seen today. He also designed the church, it’s visibility from a distance served an important part of the defence of the town as Vauban believed that an attacking army would be less likely to target a church. And he also enhanced the system of water channels and fountains in the old town. Partly to control the water flow through the steep streets, but more importantly to provide a water source in case of fire. Fire had been responsible for significant destruction of the original medieval buildings.

The Gargouilles of Briançon are pretty unique (one of only two examples in France) because they channel a stream, not just rain water. We saw the small covered aqueduct that brings this stream into the old town outside the north gate.

Getting into the walls and fortifications wasn’t as straightforward as we had imagined because nothing seemed to be signposted. The tourist office was shut, so we just nosed through any alleys and archways hoping that we weren’t walking into someone’s back garden. Part of the fortification is a museum and was closed, but we still managed to see plenty through our system of trial and error.

Wandering between the walls of the fortification

A walk from Briançon

After our exploration of the old town we tried to walk up to the Trois Têtes fort, across the arched bridge that spans the impressively deep gorge of the Durance river. Crossing the bridge was fine, but the track up to the fort was very slippery. We decided to come back the following morning with our microspikes.

That evening I looked for some walks on Wikiloc and found one that would take us on a circular route including the Fort des Trois Têtes. We re-traced our footsteps back to the Pont d’Asfeld. Constructed to Vauban’s plan (but after his death) by the Marquis d’Asfeld who took the glory of having the bridge named for him although I doubt he got his hands dirty with any actual construction and nor did he design it. The sign of a great leader.

We donned our microspikes and zig zagged up the road to the fort. We got good views of the Old Town and the Fort du Chateau we had explored the previous day. The Fort des Trois Têtes can only be visited on a guided tour. It appears that the majority of the building is owned by the army and has been condemned as unsafe. Exploring the outside of the fort was still worth it though.

From our path we could see the Fort Salettes to the north on the other side of the road to Italy. The Fort Dauphin was to the East and the Fort du Randouillet to the south. These are just a handful of the UNESCO designated forts that were built to Vauban’s plan when the Marquis d’Asfled was director-general of French fortifications.

Our path followed a mountain bike (VTT – Velo Touts Terrain) route above the village of Font Christiane before dropping down towards the Durance river.

We ended up by the Park de la Schappe where an arched aqueduct takes water past the ruins of a 19th century silk processing factory. Our microspikes had been removed before we got here, but possibly too soon, the shaded entrance to the park was slippery with ice. We decided to walk around the outside and cross the river in town before ascending up the other side of the park back to the old town.

Laundry

We were happy finally get back to Carrefour and completed our washing. We arrived to find someone washing a chalet’s worth of duvets (not the covers, the actual duvets). Luckily for us they couldn’t use the smaller of the machines. By the time we’d finished two small loads of washing they had just about finished their tumble drying. Good news for us. Our bedding and ski clothes were refreshed for our next location.