Vercors

The Vercors is a block of limestone about forty kilometres long ringed almost entirely by cliffs, which historically made it hard to enter at all; the engineer routes cut in the nineteenth century are the attraction as much as the plateau. The Combe Laval road runs on a ledge blasted into a vertical wall six hundred metres above the valley, and the Grands Goulets and Gorges de la Bourne are cut through narrow clefts with tunnels and overhangs. Inside, the plateau is forest, pasture and karst with the Choranche caves and their thin straw stalactites. The Vercors was a centre of resistance in 1944 and the fighting is remembered at a memorial and museum.

The landscape

• The Combe Laval road - a ledge cut into a vertical cliff face.
• The gorges - the Bourne and Grands Goulets clefts with tunnels.
• Choranche caves - chambers hung with unusually fine straw stalactites.
• The 1944 memorial - the resistance museum and sites on the plateau.

When to go

May to October; high roads close with snow in winter and the plateau becomes a cross-country skiing area. Passes and cliff roads are narrow and best avoided in poor visibility.

Before you go

The cliff roads are genuinely exposed with low parapets and are not for nervous drivers or large vehicles. Some sections close after rockfall. Caves are cool and require booking in summer.

Nearby

Grenoble lies northeast; the Chartreuse massif is north.

Key facts