The lower Verdon gorges are the downstream stretch of the canyon, between Quinson and Esparron-de-Verdon, narrower and more intimate than the grand canyon. You travel up them by electric boat, canoe or paddleboard from the two lakes, and walk a path cut into the cliff. The prehistory museum at Quinson completes the visit.
Everyone goes to the grand canyon. The lower gorges, forty kilometres downstream, receive a fraction of those numbers for a landscape that is different but just as fine: here the canyon is shallower and tighter, with walls of one to two hundred metres closing in over green, motionless water.
Two dams have created two lakes, the Quinson and Esparron reservoirs, which flood the canyon floor. The unexpected result: you travel up the gorges on the surface of the water, level and effortless, where elsewhere it would take six hours on foot.
This is the way to come. From the watersports bases at Esparron-de-Verdon or Quinson, you hire an electric boat needing no licence, a canoe or a paddleboard, and head upstream. Petrol engines are banned: the silence is total, and you hear the water and the birds.
After a few hundred metres the banks close in and you enter the gorge. The light turns green, the water is cold and perfectly still, caves open at water level, and you can go up several kilometres depending on the season. It is one of the finest hours you can spend in Provence, and children love steering.
Allow two hours' hire at least. Book in July and August.
A path starts at Esparron and follows the gorge high up, cut into the cliff, with balcony sections above the drop and a few handrails. Two hours there and back, moderately difficult, with plunging views over the green water. It closes on days of high fire risk.
From Quinson, another path, the basses gorges trail, follows the water and passes old Roman aqueducts and a ruined mill.
This is the perfect complement, and it is excellent. The Museum of Prehistory of the Verdon Gorges at Quinson, in a building by Norman Foster, traces a million years of human occupation of the region, drawing on excavations at the Baume Bonne cave, occupied for 400,000 years and located in the gorges.
The museum is large and modern, with reconstructions and an open-air prehistoric village. Allow two hours, more with children, and it is the obvious answer on a rainy or windy day. The cave itself can be visited in summer, guided, by reservation.
This guide is part of the address book of a private estate in Puget-sur-Argens, 90 minutes away, available for weddings and family stays. It is not open to visitors.
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