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The road route into the park from Guillestre strikes northeast through the narrow gorge of the Combe du Queyras , scarcely more than a claustrophobic crack with walls up to 400m high. Far below the road, the clear stream boils down over red and green rocks. It was only in the twentieth century that road-building techniques became sufficiently sophisticated to cope with these narrows - previously they had to be circumvented by a detour over the adjacent heights. At the upper end of the Combe, the valley broadens briefly, and ahead you see the ruinous fort of Chateau-Queyras barring the way so completely that there is scarcely room for the road to squeeze around its base - Vauban at work again, though the original fortress was medieval. Just beyond is CHATEAU-VILLE-VIEILLE , where the road for St-Veran branches right over the Guil and up the ravine of the Aigue Blanche torrent. A smaller place than Guillestre, it has only a few old houses still intact and a church with its square tower and octagonal steeple flanked by four short triangular pinnacles - a style characteristic of this corner of the Alps. A Latin inscription in the porch says the church was destroyed in 1574 by the "impiety of the Calvinists" and restored by the "piety" of the Catholics. There is a painted sundial on the tower, which is also characteristic of the region. Straight on, the road follows the Guil through the villages of Aiguilles, Abries and La Monta (all with gites d'etape ), to the Belvedere du Viso , close to the Italian border and Monte Viso , at 3841m the highest peak in the area. Above the Belvedere is the Col de la Traversette , where in 1480 the Marquis of Saluces drove a seventy-metre tunnel through the mountain. It has been reopened at various times through history, but is finally closed now. East of L'Echalp, a variant of the GR58 , which does the circuit of the park, climbs up to the Col de la Croix , used in former times by Italian peasants bringing their produce to market in Abries. South of the village, the path climbs to the pastures of Alpe de Medille , where you can see across to Monte Viso, then on past the lakes of Egourgeou , Bariche and Foreant to Col Vieux and west to the Refuge Agnel ; from here you can continue on to St-Veran.
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