It's the Alps in Provence! The mountains and lavender. Aerial peaks and the fragrant scrubland. To the natural heritage, the Gorges du Verdon, the lake of Serre-Ponçon, artificial but colonized for a long time by flora and fauna, wild massifs and white waters. To the architectural heritage, the citadel of Sisteron, on its rocky spur which overlooks the valley from its rocky spur, a narrow passage between Provence and the Dauphiné. Forcalquier, the former county town, where the market is held on Monday mornings, invites you to enjoy life and take your time. The Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, a beautiful and preserved Mediterranean terroir, is a varied sports ground in an exceptional environment where mountain biking, trail riding, hiking and winter sports can be practiced in charming village resorts, where you can climb, slide down rivers and pedal over the passes. This department is home to several natural parks: the Mercantour National Park, the Luberon Regional Natural Park and the Verdon Regional Natural Park. The territory is also characterized by a great geological richness (UNESCO Geopark and National Geological Natural Reserve of Haute-Provence). This department is also a gourmet destination around local products: Banon cheese, Haute-Provence olive oil, Sisteron lamb, lavender honey, truffles, Provence herbs, apples from the Alpes de Haute-Durance, small spelt from Haute-Provence, etc.
In the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, all outdoor sports are practiced all year round or almost all year round. But the most pleasant months are June, July, August and September. It is also the high tourist season. The many lakes and water points allow swimming, water sports and fishing. In winter, when the snow is there, the winter sports resorts come alive. In all four seasons, the weekly markets of the towns and villages offer you local products.
Many festivals and cultural events take place throughout the year, especially in summer, such as Les Écrans du lac, open-air film screenings at nightfall, throughout the summer (free of charge), the Monclar Western and Country Festival, the Festival Musiks de Manosque, the Nuits de la Citadelle in Manosque, the Rencontres musicales de Haute-Provence, the Prieuré de Salagon, the Festival des enfants du jazz in Barcelonnette and many others.
Museums are generally open almost all year round. Among them: the Museum of Prehistory of the Gorges du Verdon, the Museum and Gardens of Salagon in Mane (a jewel!), the Museum of the Ubaye Valley in Barcelonnette, the Jean Giono Centre in Manosque, the Alexandra David-Néel Museum in Digne-les-Bains in the last house of this great adventurer who stayed secretly in Tibet to study morals and religion, or the Museum-Promenade in Digne-les-Bains dedicated to landscape formation.
The Alpes-de-Haute-Provence has a Mediterranean climate, hot and humid, degraded according to altitude, latitude and continentality, with no dry season, an average temperature of 12.4°C and rainfall of 636 mm. It is characterized by high sunshine, low humidity, less than 100 days of precipitation per year, high daytime temperature amplitude, low number of rainy days. The western part of the department is exposed to the Mistral.
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