Gourdon and the Gorges du Loup – an eagle's nest above the gorge

Gourdon is perched on a vertiginous pinnacle 760 metres above sea level, high over the valley of the Loup, a position that has earned it the nickname Nid d'Aigle, the eagle's nest. It is labelled one of the Plus Beaux Villages de France and is home to just 367 people, the Gourdonnais. The neighbours are Le Bar-sur-Loup, Caussols, Cipières, Courmes and Tourrettes-sur-Loup; Grasse lies a short drive to the south-west.

The village is reached by the D6 from Le Bar-sur-Loup or the D3 from Châteauneuf-Grasse. Until the gorge road was built, everything arrived on the backs of mules.

A fortress for a thousand years

Gourdon's position made it a natural stronghold for millennia. Traces of a Roman camp with a double wall and an oppidum survive, as do the massive ramparts on the north side of the village. The place is first recorded in 1035 as Gordone. The counts of Provence rebuilt its castle in the 12th century on foundations of the ninth and tenth, and in 1235 Count Raymond Berengar gave it to the house of Grasse-Bar.

In 1598 the lordship was sold to Louis Lombard of Grasse for 12,000 écus. He pulled down the old castle and began rebuilding in 1610, and the castle chapel became the parish church. The Lombards survived the Revolution in place, though the towers lost a storey and the keep was torn down. In 1918 the castle was bought by an American, Miss Norris, who set out to restore it to its original state.

The château and its Le Nôtre gardens

The Château de Gourdon is a feudal castle with formal gardens attributed to André Le Nôtre, and it once housed museums of medieval and decorative arts. It is a private estate, and today neither the castle nor its gardens are open to the public. Admire its walls from the lanes and save your time for the view.

Queen Victoria's viewpoint

Queen Victoria visited Gourdon on 19 April 1891, and the square near the church where the panorama opens over the coast now carries her name. On a clear day the view runs from the hills of Grasse down to the sea. President Armand Fallières followed in 1909, with Georges Clemenceau in his party, and toured the castle.

Close by, the church of Notre-Dame was the castle's 12th-century Romanesque chapel, became the parish church in 1610 and was only consecrated on 5 May 1792. At the village entrance, a fountain of 1852 was paid for by the will of Jean-Louis Cavalier, who left 20,000 francs for the purpose.

The Gorges du Loup

The Loup rises near Andon at almost 1,200 metres and runs 49 kilometres to the sea at Villeneuve-Loubet. On the way it turns south and carves the Gorges du Loup, around 45 minutes from Nice, before passing Le Bar-sur-Loup and continuing towards Vence. The gorge road was hard won: a rockfall during its construction on 22 November 1907 killed 17 people.

Several waterfalls drop into the gorge, the best known being the Saut du Loup and the Cascade de Courmes. At Pont-du-Loup, at the mouth of the gorge, the Germans blew up the viaduct of the Chemins de fer de Provence on 24 August 1944; its broken piers are still a striking sight.

The Chemin du Paradis

For walkers, the classic way up is the Chemin du Paradis, the old mule path that climbs 500 metres from Le Bar-sur-Loup to Gourdon. It is steep and stony, and you earn the view. Above the village, on the Cavillore plateau, the remains of a troglodyte fortress add a final reason to keep climbing.

Neighbourhood and property data for Gourdon and nearby Vence is on VERA PI, and more Riviera stories are on metromode.co.

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