The olive tree route of the Baronnies mountains

The western fringe of the Baronnies mountains forms an undulating set of hills and slopes of real beauty where the olive tree reigns. The route goes from Buis-les-Baronnies to Nyons, passing through Mollans-sur-Ouvèze and Mirable aux Baronnies.

The olive tree is the symbol of the Mediterranean and plays a role in its culture. The tree, so the story goes, was given to mankind by the Olympian gods. One day whilst they were bored, they decided to ensure that humankind would live decently and not forget to worship them. It happened that the people of Attica were trying to come up with a name for their new town. Poseidon and Athena offered their names at the same time. Zeus concluded that the one that gave the best gift to the town would have the honour of having the town named after them.
Poseidon scraped the earth with his trident and a horse loomed up, whilst Athena made an olive tree shoot up thus demonstrating that food came from the earth and that an olive tree could be useful to mankind in many ways. All the women voted for the Goddess of Wisdom who became the protector and goddess eponymous with the town of Athens. She covered the hills with olive groves and taught humankind their thousand and one uses. Recognising the vital qualities of the olive tree, Zeus, the God of Gods, chose the olive branch as his symbol!

A walk in the Baronnies mountains brings one to more solid subjects on visiting the mills and museums which explain the olive's uses, from its crop to its transformation into olive oil.

The olive tree route

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The Camargue

The Camargue covers 85,000 hectares of land between the two branches of the Rhone river, a vast wet plain which stretches out as far as the eye can see. The highest point on the delta is a mere 4.5 metres above sea level. This region is the work of herdsmen who, with great respect for the huge river, tamed it much as one tames a wild animal, acknowledging that with nature nothing is ever conquered entirely.

The alluvial earth of the Camargue is the result of the Rhone's constant water supply which has changed its riverbed many a time over the centuries. The situation only stabilised at the end of the 19th century with the dyking up of the Rhone and the construction of a system of irrigation and drainage canals which conveyed the fresh river water. This work allowed the creation of rice fields and the building of cereal fields and northern prairies.
Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, originally a fishing village, is now the centre of regional tourism whilst trying not to sell its soul to the devil. The little town renews its traditions each year for the gypsy pilgrimage or the herdsmen festival, as well as for such occasions as a herdsman's wedding or one of the famous "ferrades", big routs which usually take place on a Sunday morning during which the bulls get branded.

The rearing of the famous little black bulls, the "biou" in Provençal, is part of the history of the Camargue. They have been around since antiquity, and were part of the last branch to the west of the great Asian bovine race. They are smaller and less heavy than their Andalusian cousins and are easily recognisable by their lyre-shaped horns. They pass their days peacefully in pastures with their fellow creatures. There are between 10,000 and 12,000 of them shared out among more than 100 herds. Particular ones become "cocardiers" and take part in Camargue races, where, to be precise, the animals are never put to death. On the contrary, some become veritable stars!

This wild Camargue, home to black bulls, white horses and pink flamingos, stretches across a vast mosaic of reed beds, briny lagoons of water and steppes of salt with scraggy copses of tamarisk. Among the ponds, that of Vaccarès, the showpiece of Camargue equilibrium, regulates the level of salinity in the water. Because above all the Camargue is an area of contrasts and balance. Every day severity confronts tolerance, fluctuations confront balance, abundance, desert and paradox, reality.

Discover the Camargue

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Bullfighting

Tackling a bull is a challenge that makes up part of the Provençal culture, and this is proven by the success of the Camargue race and the "abrivado", where the bulls are let out in the street, surrounded by the herdsmen, and all and sundry can challenge them. This has nothing to do with the Spanish bullfight even if the aficionados are often the same as the ones seen in the arena.

The Camargue race is also known as the Course Libre, or Free Race, as it is merely a free race between man and bull.
The men's clothes are all white. Their only 'weapon' is a hook which allows them to grab the attributes, rosettes, tassels and strings which are attached to the bulls' horns. The bulls that take part in this race are recognisable as being of pure race as their horns point straight upwards.

For the fifteen minutes that they are inside the arena, the bull is king. After their display, the bulls go back to living peacefully in their pastures. After numerous battles, they becoming more and more cunning and refine their strategy. History has kept in mind some real phenomena, veritable stars whose names were written in large on the posters, sometimes even larger than those of the men!

The Camargue race

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