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Since it was created in 1979, the Mercantour Park has become one of the most popular of the seven French national parks, with 800,000 visitors every year, enjoying the 600 km of waymarked footpaths and visiting its 28 perched villages.
The protected area covers some 685 square kilometres, consisting of a
central uninhabited zone comprising seven valleys - Roya,
Bévéra, Vésubie,
Tinée, Haut Var/Cians (in the Alpes Maritimes) plus Verdon
and Ubaye (in the Alpes de Haute Provence) - and a peripheral zone comprising 28 villages. Many of them are perched villages, concealing great architectural riches (numerous churches decorated with murals and altar pieces by primitive Niçois painters). More than 150 rural gites are located within the Park.
In the heart of this setting of vertiginous summits (including Mont Gélas, the highest point in the Alpes Maritimes at 3143 m), lies a gem listed as a Historical Monument, the famous Vallée des Merveilles, the aptly named valley of marvels.
At the foot of Mont Bégo, climbers can admire some 37,000 rock carvings dating back to the Bronze Age representing weapons, cattle and human figures that are sometimes very mysterious. Other less sporty visitors mustn't forget to have a look round the Musée des Merveilles at Tende.
In
addition to the holm oak, the Mediterranean olive tree, rhododendrons, firs, spruces, cembro pines and above all larches, the Mercantour is also endowed with more than 2,000 species of flowering plants, 200 of which are very rare: edelweiss and martagon lily are the best known, but there is also saxifrage with multiple flowers, houseleek, moss campion and gentiane offering a multi-coloured palette in the spring.
Walkers may easily glimpse a chamois deer, which are very numerous in the Park (several thousand) and may often hear the whistling of marmots. The ermine is rarer (and more furtive), as is the ibex and the mouflon, although with a little luck you may be able to observe them during the coolest times of day in the summer.
There is a tremendous variety of wildlife in the Mercantour: stags and roebucks in the undergrowth, hares and wild boars, partridges, eagles and buzzards, numerous species of butterflies and even a few wolves (reintroduced at the beginning of the nineties).
A project to set up a Wolves Centre should soon become a reality at Saint-Martin Vésubie where you will be able to observe this mythical animal threatened by extinction.
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A few suggestions for hike :
Allos
