Now for what I thought was the scary part of the day....

Does the signpost give you an idea?  Yes we were finally at the start of the bit I had been secretly (ok so I went on a bit) been dreading the most....driving over the Alps.

We had already climbed about 1000 ft when we stopped to swap over driving.  I had driven along the lovely valley floor on wide double track roads.  Then we stopped so John could take over, we had turned onto a much smaller road....

Do I look scared yet?  I feel it!  The ginger car looks a lot bigger than me.  Bless her she was running like a dream and had stopped her mad thirst for oil when we were going slowly on the high roads.

John ready to face the Alps and raring to go!  He does love his car....

The foothills.  It really is quite odd, you climb round lots of hairpin bends and then suddenly it seems to flatten out again.  Quite often I would be feeling scared and then around the corner was a village.  I would then feel a bit silly for making a fuss!

James and Richard leave us for dust in the Jaguar Mk2.  This is a village on a plain about 3,500ft.  We kept saying to each other "this must be the high pasture"  then we would go up again and find more higher up!

The fear begins.  I know this is a difficult picture to see but we are going over a bridge and looking through the parapet.  This is when I knew I wasn't going to enjoy the next hour or so.  I didn't think it could get any worse.  I was wrong.....

Ok so this is the bridge we had just driven over.  The drop was horrendus.  The next hundred yards was when I started crying.  There are no photos.  I did well to take the one of the bridge!  I was really surprised by my reaction, I expected to be nervous but I didn't think I'd cry!  Of course the really scary bit didn't last that long but it felt like forever.  I don't like 5000ft ravines with bridges over them, but I think I will be a lot better on bridges from now on because I WILL NEVER GO OVER A BRIDGE THAT HIGH EVER AGAIN!

So now we are a lot further on in the journey, approaching Barcelonette.  We really had to get a move on when we came a bit further down so not many pictures, even though it was stunning scenery.

We didn't know it yet but we are starting to climb towards the Col D'Allos - the REALLY scary mountain pass.  I love how crinkly the mountains in the background are!  The day was not over yet though.....