Gap: The Terraced Garden of Charance and the Polychrome Cathedral
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
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200
XP
+100 France
= 300 total
1 day
Gap: The Terraced Garden of Charance and the Polychrome Cathedral
200 + 100 XP
Four kilometres north-west of Gap, the Domaine de Charance covers 220 hectares climbing from 1,000 m to the ridge above 1,850 m. Around the château, once a residence of the bishops of Gap, a terraced garden of 9,000 square metres — listed since 1987, replanted in its present form in 2001 and labelled a Jardin Remarquable in 2005 — and a park full of pools, cascades, a canal and a boathouse make up the developed lower part; the old stables hold the headquarters of the Écrins National Park, one of France's eleven national botanical conservatories and an agricultural ecomuseum. In town, the neo-Gothic cathedral built from 1866 to 1904 by the architect Charles Laisné is faced in white, grey and pink stone in imitation of Embrun's, and its 70 m bell tower is the tallest building in Gap.
Required Activities
1
of 4
Walk the 9,000 square metres of terraced garden from the bottom up and work out the logic of it: each terrace is given to one group of plants — box, holly, grasses, daphnes — and every one of them is fed by the canals, cascades and fountains running down the slope
2
of 4
Follow the water through the park from the cascades down the canal to the pools, and find the boathouse at the end of it — part of the listed waterworks, and the reason a mountain bishop's garden needed a boat
3
of 4
Work out the pattern in the cathedral's banded white, grey and pink stone — a copy of the Lombard effect at Embrun up the valley — then go inside for Émile Hirsch's chancel window and Giandomenico Facchina's mosaic, and come out to see the 70 m tower that is still the tallest thing in Gap
4
of 4
In the old stables, go through the agricultural ecomuseum covering how people made a living in the Hautes-Alpes between 1790 and 1950, and look across at the Alpine conservatory's growing ground and greenhouses, where wild mountain plants close to extinction are kept going
Walk the 9,000 square metres of terraced garden from the bottom up and work out the logic of it: each terrace is given to one group of plants — box, holly, grasses, daphnes — and every one of them is fed by the canals, cascades and fountains running down the slope
Follow the water through the park from the cascades down the canal to the pools, and find the boathouse at the end of it — part of the listed waterworks, and the reason a mountain bishop's garden needed a boat
Work out the pattern in the cathedral's banded white, grey and pink stone — a copy of the Lombard effect at Embrun up the valley — then go inside for Émile Hirsch's chancel window and Giandomenico Facchina's mosaic, and come out to see the 70 m tower that is still the tallest thing in Gap
In the old stables, go through the agricultural ecomuseum covering how people made a living in the Hautes-Alpes between 1790 and 1950, and look across at the Alpine conservatory's growing ground and greenhouses, where wild mountain plants close to extinction are kept going
Before you go
The terraced garden and park are public and free, and the château itself is the Écrins National Park's offices rather than a visitable house. The agricultural ecomuseum in the old stables runs a season from 1 March to 31 October only and is shut the rest of the year; midweek it opens Wednesday to Friday from 10.30am to noon and those visits are by appointment, so from November to the end of February the garden and the cathedral are the whole visit.
Charance is 4 km uphill from Gap on a narrow road; the car park at the top is small and fills on summer weekends.
Only the lowest part of the 220 hectares is laid out. Above the garden the domain is open mountain up to the ridge, so take walking shoes and water if you go higher.
Gap sits above 700 m and the domain higher still: expect snow and ice on the paths and the access road from December to March.
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Challenge Location
XP Breakdown
Challenge XP
200 XP
France country bonus
+100 XP
Potential total
300 XP
Country bonus earned on completion of your first challenge in France.
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