Hiking from Piedne Haute to Sospel

Located at the end of the rocky ridge on which the village is located. One can see from this castle, the tower of the Cruella in Breil sur roya, the hamlet of Libre, the village of Fanghetto.Until 1815, this castle was the most advanced strategic position of the Republic of Genoa in the Roya Valley. In front of him stand the Savoiese positions of Breil on Roya, the castle of Ar Casté and the tower of the Cruella. Known as impregnable, the castle is at stake in many battles. The Breillois seized it in 1239 and kept it until 1252, when they had to return it to Genoa. The Provençals took him in 1335. He resisted several attempts by Savoie, then was abandoned in 1815 when the Republic of Genoa joined the house of Savoie-Sardinia. Abandoned for nearly a century, it gradually deteriorated. After the war it became private property and remains so to this day. Do not visit each other.

The hamlet of Piène Haute has 60 inhabitants in the winter and 150 in the summer.The ruins of the old castle testify to its age. Its name «Piène Haute» has sparked many debates during this long history. Primitively “Penna” and then “Penna Alta” (some translate «Piène Haute») it has turned into «Piena» not to confuse it with another «Penna», located in Abruzzo. The name of Piène Haute was definitively retained in 1947 when it came to France. The hamlet of Piène-Haute (600 m altitude) is relatively isolated due to its original military location (a medieval Genoese stronghold). Access by road was only created after the village became part of France. The village overlooks the Roya on a 200m-high cliff, with a very wide view of the Mercantour peaks and the sea. The village as a whole is spectacular, both for its linear layout and for the well-preserved homogeneity of its appearance. The church of Saint-Marc, a Historic Monument, features Baroque Ligurian decoration from the early 18th century. The Chapel of the White Penitents (Monuments Historiques) has preserved its neo-Gothic decor from the late 19th century. The small houses in the hamlet, like the roads, are carefully maintained and planted with flowers by the locals, who maintain a pleasant overall unity. Château de Piène-Haute (private) is a former Genoese stronghold of medieval origin (11th-17th centuries), built on a rocky ridge at the end of the hamlet, overlooking the Roya.

The bridge over the Bévéra river has been attested on the road between Nice and the Piemont as early as the 13th century. Temporary exhibitions take place inside the Pont-Vieux. For any information, contact the tourist information office of SospelPartly rebuilt in the 16th and 17th centuries, only the lower part of the pile remains from medieval age. The watchtower was inhabited and housed a shop until 1960. The two arches were destroyed by the Germans in october 1944 and then rebuilt faithfully to the original in 1951.

Links France to Italy through an exceptional landscape.Itinary upon the Bévéra river located on an old mule track . Very interesting in a botanical and geological point of view. More or less flat with some dizzy places