This April, I took a trip with my dog to Les-Salles-sur-Verdon, a small town located along Lac de Sainte-Croix in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur region of France (that’s a lot of dashes!).
The main reason that we wanted to visit this place was to see the Verdon Gorge, the largest canyon in Europe and second largest in the world, behind only the Grand Canyon in the USA.
While there are plenty of good viewpoints that you can reach by car, I wanted to get really close to the canyon and bring my dog along. It turns out that this is not so easy!
Although there are many hiking trails that let you explore the canyon as a human, most of them are either very long and/or quite difficult and thus not suitable for small paws. In fact, when I asked about this in the tourist office the attendant told me: “this will be difficult” and proceeded to print information on viewpoints to reach by car. D’oh.
But I was on a mission to see the canyon with my dog, so I persevered and after a bunch of internet research in multiple languages, I found a trail that works for dogs and gives you great views of the canyon.
I proudly present to you:
THE ROUTE
We start at the Parking lot belvédère barrage de Sainte Croix. This parking lot is right at the start of the trail as you can see from the map.
Please note: This is a very small parking on the side of the road. I was lucky to snag up the last spot there when I visited, and this was not during high season. So if you are traveling in high season, I would recommend getting there either early or late. If this parking spot is full, you can also park in the village, but this will add about 2km to your route.
From the parking lot, we will follow the trail that is marked with a yellow and red line on top of each other as you can see in the map. I did not walk a circular route, but you can do that if you continue to follow the yellow-red route until they split and then follow the yellow trail back to the parking lot, as the map shows.
In general, the route is well sign-posted with frequent markings of yellow and red lines, but you need to pay some attention. Sometimes the markings are a bit hidden or even missing and it is also helpful to know how to read them, so here is an example for you:
Another word of warning: This route takes you really close to the edge of the canyon. Please have your dog on a leash for their safety! And for your own safety, please: There is no need to leave the trail and climb down to get very close to the edge. You can stay on the trail and you will still get great view of the canyon. All the photos shown in this post were shot from the trail.
Alright, enough pre-amble, let’s get to walking!
Following the rocky and partially narrow paths shown above, making sure to always stay on the yellow-red route, the first great view that we get is a view of Lac de Sainte-Croix (the lake) along with the Pont de Sainte-Croix (the bridge) and the Barrage de Sainte-Croix (the dam).
Did you know that the village Les-Salles-sur-Verdon was actually moved from its original place to make room for the lake, which is a reservoir used for the dam? The dam is operated by EDF and provides hydroelectric power to the region.
As we move along the path, we soon get to see the main event: The Verdon Gorge canyon!
I must say, the size of it is really impressive.
I really loved seeing the bright blue water against the giant rocky canyon walls and the partial cloud cover. What a beautiful contrast.
It was definitely worth stopping here and getting a good look at it.
For us, we turned back here because it was quite sunny and hot and most of the route is not very sheltered.
Since I was not sure how the rest of the loop would look and how long it would take us, we decided to head back to the car rather than walking the full trail.
On the way back, my dog enjoyed climbing onto the rocks on the other side of the trail, so I am confident that she had fun on this walk too!
Overall, I was very happy happy with this route and would definitely rate it as dog friendly. It was very quiet and we only met a few people on the way, but most of them also had dogs with them!
HOW LONG IT TAKES AND WHO IT’S FOR
This is a relatively easy route, but it is rocky and narrow in parts and it is partially uphill. I found it doable without great exertion, but please come prepared with solid footwear. I would also advise you to bring water and sunscreen along, especially if you plan on walking the full loop.
The part of the route that I took was about one hour in total, 30 mins to get to the nice view of the canyon and 30 mins back. I would estimate a loop to take around 2 hours, but as I did not do that, try at your own risk!
THE BOTTOM LINE
This is a dog friendly route that takes you close to the canyon for some great views. As a bonus, you also get a really good view at the lake and the dam. Highly recommended!
A trip with my dog 
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