The Hautes-Alpes is a department of high mountains, a land of peaks, glaciers and larch forests situated between Provence and the Dauphiné, with Gap as its capital and Briançon as its fortress. This high-altitude department, one of the highest in France with an average altitude of over 1,000 metres, is a paradise for lovers of hiking, skiing and the wilderness.
Briançon, France’s highest town at an altitude of 1,326 metres, boasts a Vauban citadel listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Major Sites of Vauban, with its star-shaped ramparts overlooking the confluence of the Durance and Guisane rivers. Picomtal Castle in Chorges and La Salle Castle in La Roche-des-Arnauds bear witness to a modest yet authentic castle heritage in a department whose identity is primarily Alpine and mountainous.
The Embrunais region, with its stone villages and medieval fortifications, and the Écrins National Park, whose peaks reach 4,102 metres at the Barre des Écrins, offer a natural landscape of exceptional biological and geological richness that attracts thousands of hikers and mountaineers from all over the world every year.