Wolves, lakes and hilltop villages around Valdeblore

Not every day has to be earned in vertical metres. There are rainy days, days when the legs file a formal complaint, and companions who never promised to climb anything. Good news: the two valleys, an hour from Nice, have plenty to fill days like that — and it starts in the hamlet itself.

The house shares Saint-Dalmas with the church of the Invention of the Holy Cross, built around the year 1000 by Benedictine monks from the abbey of Pedona and listed as a historic monument. Three crypts, a square bell tower, murals among the oldest in the Alpes-Maritimes: early Lombard Romanesque work in the hamlet where you sleep. Check the opening days before you walk over — it is a village church, not a museum.

The outing people remember is Parc Alpha, at Le Boréon above Saint-Martin-Vésubie: packs of wolves in large forest enclosures, watched from hides, on a site inside the core zone of the Mercantour National Park. Bring time, decent shoes and patience — wolves do not work to a timetable. Tickets and opening times live on the park's own site; they shift with the seasons.

And if it really rains, Vésubia Mountain Park in Saint-Martin-Vésubie puts the mountain indoors: a climbing wall, an adventure course, indoor canyoning, a swimming pool and a spa area under one roof. It is the one place around here where a thunderstorm suits everybody. Again, check times and access on their site before you drive down.

The rest is best seen slowly, with a map on your knees. Rimplas clinging to its rocky spur on the Tinée road, the balcony villages of the Vésubie and their painted chapels, the bread ovens and fountains you find by getting lost in the lanes. Higher up, once the snow has gone, the Millefonts lakes sit in the alpine pastures within Valdeblore itself, at the gateway to the Mercantour. It is usually on the way back down from there that somebody asks for one more night.