Les Baux de Provence

As promised, next stop on our road trip is Les Baux de Provence, which is listed as one of “Les Plus Beaux Villages de France” (the most beautiful villages in France). I’ll explain a little bit more about this designation later on in the blog when we visit another place with this designation. I was going to do it here, but then this post got a bit long ;)

Ready to climb, climb, climb!

So, we were winding up through the hills trying to figure out where this little village was when we saw it dramatically perched at the top of the hill ahead of us. The road we were on hugged the side of the hill, with a steep drop to the left and a steep climb up to the right. Cars were parked along the right side, as it had a large shoulder that seemed to have been put in solely for that purpose. Being in a tiny little Fiat 500, we were easily able to get a spot near the trail that led up the hill.

It was quite warm out, even in the late afternoon, so we made our way up the steep hill promising ourselves that ice cream was in our very near future! Once we climbed our way into the main part of the village, which was about ¾ of the way up the hill, we headed straight for the tourism office to find out what there was to see. We hadn’t done much research on what there was to do in Les Baux, figuring we could figure it out when we got there.

View from 1/3 of the way up. The name "Baux" comes from the
Provençal word bau meaning craggy cliff - visible in this picture. 

We learned that there was a multimedia art show that had one show left that day, projecting the work of Van Gogh set to music. We also learned that there were ruins of the Dukes of Les Baux’s large chateau up at the very top of the hill. We’d only have time to do one of them, since they each took about two hours and closed around 6pm. At first we went back down the hill a little to the multimedia show, but while waiting in line we changed our minds. We climbed back up the hill, and then kept going all the way to the top. We paid our entry fee, picked up our audio guides and headed in. When the woman said we only had an hour before we had to return the audio guides, I wasn’t worried. Once we got all the way into the grounds, I realized that I had underestimated the size of the site and we’d have to prioritize.

The fortress was built in the 10^th century by the Lords of Baux. The domain was originally named for the Baux family that held the title from when it was created in the late 10^th century, until 1426 when the direct family line in France ended. At one point a branch of the family moved to Naples and is still known as a powerful family even today – although as the del Balzo family. The domain was no longer ruled by the “Lords of Baux of the House of Baux” but inherited by the Counts of Provence. They were technically still of the same family line, just didn’t carry the name anymore, so then the area was ruled by what they called the “Lords of Baux of the House of Valois-Anjou”. The first of these, Rene I, was also the king of Naples - the Les Baux/del Balzo family was extremely powerful. The second, Charles I, was the end of the 500-year line of the Les Baux stronghold in France. It was 500 years of constant conflicts that ended with Charles retreating to Italy when the French king, Louis XI, seized the domain and added it to the holdings of the French crown.

The Les Baux Dukes had given the money to start the Abbey at Montmajour that was the subject of my previous post, and they were of course heavily involved in all of the political & religious tensions in the area. The most important of these was the Avigion Papacy, which is when 8 successive Popes lived in Avignon instead of Rome. That will be the subject of another post, since the next day of our road trip takes us to Avignon to see the Popes Palace and the other UNESCO sites in the area.

One of the workshops on display - food prep!

While we were walking up to the ruins of the chateau, we saw a couple of guys demonstrating a sword fight, and some stalls that were set up so we could see the blacksmith’s, saddle maker’s, shoemaker’s, etc. shops. We also saw some of that time period’s most well known weapons of war. One of these was a huge battering ram for breaking down chateau/citadel gates and doors. There was also a trebuchet which is a huge catapult. We missed the demonstrations of how they work because it was later in the day, but they do perform them so people can see how these weapons worked. We didn’t linger, as we wanted to go to the very top of the highest tower of the ruins (of course) and we didn’t have a ton of time.

As we were walking up we learned about the different parts of the fortification. We also learned that, after the French king took control, local religious wars and familial feuds brought the decline of the town until Louis XII ordered the fortress closed and partially destroyed in 1633. 

Obviously in use for 1,000 years! 

The stone steps we walked up to get to the top of the fortress were tiny and so worn that they were extremely difficult and dangerous to climb. 

They had actually put in some metal grills on some of them so we could climb them. At the top, there was actually a woman that was in 4-inch stilettos and I could not comprehend how she managed to get up there  those steps in heels!!

 Once we got to the top, we had the most amazing view of the entire region! It was obvious why the Les Baux family chose to put their fortress up there! They built it actually into the rock of the mountain, making it impenetrable, and they could see all around them for hundreds of kilometers in case any enemies might be coming their way.

View from one side.

View from the other side.

When they thought the heart was near the stomach.

We climbed down and had about 20 minutes left with our audio guides, so we went over to the ruins of the living area and learned all about the way kitchens were run, how they lived and worshiped in the chateau, medicine of the time, interesting things like that!  

We handed back our audio guides and headed back down the hill to our little Fiat – stopping for the previously promised ice cream of course! It had been a long, full day and we still had a 2-hour drive back to our AirBnB in Aix. Our plan was to leave for Avignon by 8am so we could make it to Mass at the Cathedral, which itself is a UNESCO site.

But that will have to wait until my next blog post!

If you'd like some more pictures and views from the chateay, this video is only 2 minutes. I did not take this video, and the music is a bit obnoxious, but the pictures are nice!