Les Gorges de Tines

2 points of interest

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  Flora

  How can you tell the difference between moss, lichen and ferns?

  What a pleasure it is to be able to spend time in the forest! The benefits of this rich ecosystem need no further demonstration. Here, you'll start your walk in the heart of a rather cool forest dominated by beech trees, with large limestone boulders and lapies alongside mosses, ferns and lichens. While mosses are pioneer species of wetlands from the earliest days of evolution, lichens (generally dry in nature) are characterised by their exceptional symbiosis: the fusion of fungi and algae. Ferns, on the other hand, are vascular plants, meaning that their tissues are actively transporting water and nutrients, such as sap, from the ground to the tips of their leaves and vice versa. The maidenhair spleenwort (see photo) is a fern

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  Geology

  Water hard at work

  Since the dawn of time, water has interfered with, shaped, polished and eroded rocks and landscapes, carving a deep path through the limestone. Thousands of years ago, the Giffre river carved out the gorges that you walk through today; subsequently, as the glaciers eroded, the river bed gradually shifted northwards, lower down into the gorges that we know today. What's more, at the point where the riverbed was rerouted, the glacial riegel is clearly visible if you take a closer look at the minerals around you! Can you see this glacial riegel, marked by the convergence of the left and right banks of the Giffre further down the walk?