9/1 Bouzieyas to St Etienne de Tinee - Auron

We had a cozy room and awoke refreshed - the electric room heater kept the room cozy and dried out our laundry. Quite chilly outside I dressed in my thermals again but no rain at least. The walk is easy compared to the previous day. We descended a bit to cross the stream and then walked the gravel road heading back up - as usual where the road switchbacks the trail just climbs up the hillside. In all it's about a 780 ft climb to an open basin, where there are nice views - on this day, of gathering clouds across the valley. The rout then traverse climbs to the Col de la Colombiere 2307 meters( 7569 ft ).
To cold and windy to pause here we started a deep descent of 2750 ft to St Dalmas Le Selvage. The hill was dry with many small succulents and dried flowers. It's a long ways down and we needed a rest and food when we reached the old village. We found an open snack place where we ordered paninni's, salad, and desert. We have felt quite starved lately despite seemingly eating well.
The village is old and picturesque with a sundial in the town center and an old church.
Below the church, the river is crossed and once again upward movement through trees on road, but nothing dramatic- maybe 900 ft to reach Col d' Anelle at 5700ft. Then another big descent to St Etienne de Tinnee which sits at 3553 ft ( 1144m) . The total descent for the day adds up to 1535 m ( more then 5000 ft). The vegetation changes here and lavender is present on the hillsides. Warmer too as the sun seemed to stay out while snow showers / sprinkles swirled in the heights above us.
The are old buildings / chalets here and we paused for photos. Just above town the GR follows paths between buildings and old terraces - it feels like a very old route. We entered the city with the sounds of music which turned out to be a wedding in progress. The town is old with a few hotels and some gites. We'd planned to stay in St Etienne for two nights but none of the lodging had wifi. It sounds silly but with the trip nearing it's end there were loose ends to tie up and we needed it. The solution was to take a free shuttle up to ski village of Auron, also on the GR5 . Here we found upmarket lodging with wifi. Importantly, the is also a laundry here! We ran into a Swiss walker we'd met the previous night and scheduled dinner with him. Tam rested while I took everything to the laundry wearing my shorts and fleece jacket. Walking back with it done I froze in the blowing freezing rain - took a hot shower to warm up.
We went to an Italian place with Daniel, our Swiss acquaintance and had huge fun eating and talking with him. He needed to be home by weeks end and so was pushing on tommorrow while we were having a rest day - the first in many weeks.