You are here: Visit France > Regions of France> Provence > Alpes-Maritimes > Mercantour National Park

Mercantour National Park

Hotels

Mercantour National Park Car Hire

Mercantour Park Hotels

 

(or enter new destination)

Check-in date

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031

Check-out date

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031

Search

Best Price Guaranteed
Reserve online, pay at the hotel.

Visit Mercantour National Park

The park is in the Provence-Alps-Cote d'Azur region, running along the border with Italy south east of Barcelonnette and north west of Sospel, where it receives more than 400,000 visitors per year.

Mercantour National Park covers some 685 km², and consists of a central uninhabited zone comprising several valleys (Roya, Bévéra, Vésubie, Tinée, Haut Var/Cians, Verdon, Ubaye - and a peripheral zone that includes a couple of dozen villages. Several of these villages are in stunning locations atop rocky peaks and outcrops.

The majority of people exploring the parc base themselves in one of the towns on or near the Barcelonnette to Sospel road that passes along the south of the parc -  these towns include St-Martin-de-Entraunes, St-Sauveur-sur-Tinée, St-Etienne-de-Tinée and St-Martin-Vésubie. The road itself reaches an altitude of 2800 metres (one of the highest in Europe) as it passes by the Cime de la Bonette.

The scenery in the Mercantour Parc is really some of the best to be found in France, and it is quite lovely to walk through the lower meadows and woodlands, or if you are more experienced, to embark on one of the more strenuous mountain tracks.

One of the unexpected surprises worth seeing within the park can be reached by heading north from Sospel to St-Dalmas-de-Tende, and then heading west on the D91. From the Les Mesces Refuge there is a hike of 10km that takes you into the Vallée des Merveilles where hundreds of 3,000 year-old rock carvings of people and animals can be seen.