The Perfect Day for a Hassle Free Drive in the Country

It started off OK. Our host Giles (pronounced Jeeels) at Roussillon asked us what our next port of call was. I informed him that we were off to Jausiers , a small village in the Alps hard up against the Italian border, a drive of 200km and 3.5 hours. Giles then dials up Google and announces that if we wished to get the best out of the day we should reroute our trip via a wide arc south that would take in the Gorges of Verdon. The suggestion was that at most this was a small deviation from our planned route.
What could we say? Giles is French, he knows the territory like the back of his hand. In fact in the six winter months Giles and wife Monique hang out in the Alps whilst he does his ski instructor thing, so,he is very familiar with this territory. It is another cloudless day, the sun is shining, the temperature is going to hit the late twenties, we have time to burn prior to a 1500 hr check-in, so we throw new coordinates into TomTom and head south.
The first couple of hours were fantastic, the scenery was just stunning as we wove our way through fields of Lavender and Wheat, and seemingly endless plots of vines.
Down through Manosque, through Greoux-les-Bans, up to Riez, then headlong into Gorges du Vedon ( just incredible scenery) then up to Castellane.
At this point I dialed up the coordinates of our final destination Jausiers, and after dwelling for a couple of minutes on the fact that this final 100km's was going to take some hours to traverse, I turned to Julia and suggested that maybe we might be in for a bit of a hill climb.
Some of you may be aware that I hate heights, a condition brought on thirty plus years back when I suffered an attack of vertigo when climbing the bell tower of Hamburg's main cathedral (that was prior to the introduction of a lift to accommodate fat American tourists. God bless America!)
So here we are,we have reached St Julien du Verdon, and I finally and very reluctantly pull the rental over so I can check out our map in detail.
And guess what? Between us and our destination stands the Col d'Allos , a mountain pass that tops at 7,350 feet. 
This is Ed Hillary territory and frankly, I'm scared.
Off we go. After two or three minutes we are on a seven degree incline, navigating our way up a mountain slope on a road the width of a cycle-way that resembles a partially paved goat track with no side barriers.
Guys, if you are not scared of heights you simply have no comprehension of what I was about to put myself through.
For the next hour my eyes were locked on the road immediately in front of me, my knuckles were translucent white as my sweating hands gripped the steering wheel and my heart was pounding like a jack hammer attacking concrete tarmac.Three  years of good work generated by twice daily doses of blood pressure tablets were vaporised in an instant.
And as for Julia, well she was scared rigid as she trained her eyes forward and refused to look to her immediate right, a view that would have revealed that our outer wheels were tracking maybe twelve inches from the side of a cliff face that at it's height dropped at least four thousand feet directly down into the valley below. 
I finally managed to slot our vehicle in behind an old Swiss guy who obviously knew a couple of things about mountain driving. So every time a vehicle came from the opposite direction our Swiss man either sped up or slowed down to ensure he was positioned in a part of the road which would allow for vehicles to pass each other. We just hung onto his bumper and prayed.
How close were our vehicles to passing traffic? Let's put it this way. The oncoming vehicles have their wing mirrors folded inwards. We did the same. Yet in at least 50% of the vehicles that we passed, our closed wing mirrors scraped against each other. This is terror territory on two wheels.
And as if things couldn't get any worse on the accent I happened to look up the road and what I saw damn near gave me a heart attack. Julia spotted the camper wagon heading in our direction at the moment I sighted same  and she lets out a groan.
My immediate thought is bloody hell, what's this looney doing driving this four tonne monstrosity on a mountain pass. Is he insane? He can't be German. Those guys are far too rational to risk life and limb in this act of sheer lunacy. And he can't be a French driver. They value life too much.
No, it's got to be a Dutchman. They are the only guys stupid enough to ignore safety. The van gets closer. Julia yells ' I can see the number plate...NL..yep, they are Dutch'. I said ' Why the hell couldn't this sucker save us all the trouble and do the normal  Dutch  holiday thing  and hang out all day naked in a campground whilst getting stoned on cut priced dope?' There is no room to pass, the Swiss driver in front of us starts waving his hands in all directions.  This is one stressed out Swiss. 
All parties stop in their tracks.
What to do? What to do?
Finally it falls to this idiot Dutchman to resolve the problem of his own making. This death wish merchant starts backing his motor home back up this ten degree cliff face road. He finally locates a half metre of extra road width, and with that, the Swiss and yours truly take off in first gear and slowly scrape our way past his camper van.Julia told me later that as we passed she took a peek out the window and could see that our wheels were within six inches of the cliff edge. 
The descent was just as terrifying.
When we reached the bottom of the valley I pulled into the nearest parking space, killed the motor, turned to Julia and announced that I had never been so scared in my life to which she replied, join the club.
After we spend three nights here in Jausiers  we are heading back to Provence and Chateauneuf du Pape.
Trust me, we are taking the valley floor route out via Gap.
Our hearts just don't need the stress of another mountain pass.