Spring break in Rémuzat (Drôme) from 22 to 28 April 2012
Presentation
The spring gathering will take place in 2012 at Rémuzat in Drome provençale (62 km from Montélimar and 26 km from Nyons) from 22 to 28 April.
Rémuzat lies on the left bank of the river Oule, surrounded by orchards of plum trees. Rémuzat is all Provence, with a hint of the Alps. More discreet, less well-known than other regions, its beauty remains more authentic, wilder with its stone houses and clay tiles.
Around the village (447 m altitude), the southern Pre-Alps, with peaks over 1,000 m high, are silhouetted against a sky of incomparable luminosity. The Caire rock, a long cliff facing due east, dominates the area. The morning sun quickly warms the air.
At the end of the page you'll find a more detailed cultural presentation of the region, its history, geography and terroir.
Registration
Po enable you to take part in its spring gathering and the activities on offer, the Club des Cent Cols has negotiated accommodation arrangements with the Association Ternélia Chemins, which has travel accreditation, enabling us to comply with the Tourism Code and benefit from group rates. Unlike previous trips, registrations and financial management will be handled directly by the Ternélia Chemins Association, while the Club des Cent Cols will only be responsible for the programme of activities (tours, events).
You will find enclosed the prices of the services and the general conditions of sale of the stay by Ternélia as well as a registration form.
You must register directly with the centre. Download the registration documentation
Accommodation
We offer accommodation at the Les Lavandes holiday centre in the heart of the village. The centre has 88 rooms with 2 or 3 beds, balconies, private bathroom and WiFi connection, and 2 rooms with 2 beds for people with reduced mobility. There is also a sauna-hammam available at an additional cost.
More information is available on the centre's website, http://www.ternelia-chemins.com/ete/village-vacances-les-lavandes-remuzat.html
If you wish to use the accommodation offered, you must register directly with the centre by downloading the registration documentation mentioned in the previous section.
The municipal campsite is closed at this time. There is a farm campsite with 6 pitches on the heights of Rémuzat:
Ferme de la Perrière
La Combe
26510 REMUZAT
Telephone: +33 (0)4.26.66.90.09
Mobile: +33 (0)6.13.57.83.60
info@camping-gite-ferme-remuzat.fr
www.camping-gite-ferme-remuzat.fr/
Programme details
Cycling programme
The list of passes on the routes, interactive maps, route sheets and altitude profiles can be found here :
- List of road routes
- List of mountain bike trails
For those of you who navigate using GPS or geolocation software, you can also download all the geolocation files
The local organisers want to make sure that all the roads, paths and tracks are in impeccable condition for your visit. So they've launched a big undergrowth clearance of almost 2 km on one of the mountain bike circuits on 31 March!
Events programme
- Sunday 22 - 6.00pm: welcome drink; 9pm: presentation of the routes.
- Monday 23 - 9.00 pm: Vulture evening
- Tuesday 24 - 9.00 pm: Digital cartography evening
- Wednesday 25 - 9.00 pm: Slide show of the 2011 Tour de la France by Régis Paraz
- Thursday 26 - 9.00 pm: Quiz by Didier Rémond
- Friday 27 - 9.00 pm: Dance evening
- Saturday 28 - 12.30pm: farewell drink
For those who don't cycle
Get a bird's eye view of the hilltop villages
♥♥♥ Saint May, Bodon Abbey, and the panorama of the Rocher du Caire. A 5-minute drive away.
♥♥♥ Villeperdrix: old restored church (17th century), ruins of the priory, remains of the fortified enclosure of the medieval village. 10 mins by car.
♥♥♥ Rochebrune: medieval perched village (12th century), tower of the old castle, church (11th-15th). 30 mins by car.
♥♥♥ Pommerol and its extraordinary surroundings. Old restored and private village with regulated or even forbidden access (July-August). 30 minutes by car.
♥♥ Aubres: little corner of paradise perched near Nyons. 30 minutes by car.
♥ Montaulieu, le Poët Sigillat, Chaudebonne, etc... 30 minutes away by car
Absolutely the vultures
♥♥♥ Field observation walk with paying guide. Starting from the centre.
The cool thing
♥♥♥ Visit the Provencal market in Nyons on Thursday mornings. 30 minutes by car.
The must-sees
♥♥♥ Olives, wine, honey, cheese, seasonal fruit, lavender...
Suggestion
♥♥♥ Follow your instincts... improvise.
Cultural and tourist information
There are paths that glide along the roads and half-hidden under the grass, remain on the lookout. They say nothing. They just stand there. You see them, they look at you, sometimes very gently, they grab your foot and, if you just give way, they pull you off the road, God knows where!
Henri Bosc
Introduction
Rémuzat is a small, peaceful village in the Drôme Provençale, part of the Baronnies region. It lies on the left bank of the river Oule, overlooked by the impressive east-facing cliff of Rocher du Caire. The morning sun quickly warms the air. This is what enabled a colony of griffon vultures to be re-established in 1995, followed by black vultures, which had practically disappeared from France. Since then, the Egyptian vulture, which is much rarer, has reappeared spontaneously. There are now more than 300 individuals feeding over an area of more than 6,000 square kilometres.
Geography
The Baronnies is a natural and historic region between the south of the Drôme, the west of the Hautes-Alpes and the north of the Vaucluse.
This is a mid-mountain region (altitude below 1600 m), with a rugged landscape that stretches from west to east, from the Valréas plain to the middle Durance valley, and from south to north, from Mont Ventoux to the edge of the Diois.
A country divided into valleys, interspersed here and there with large synclinal basins or narrow basins. Communication between the valleys has never been easy, despite the numerous medium-altitude passes.
A land of contrasts, with vineyards on the plains, cherry, apricot and olive trees on the hills and lavender fields on the plateaux, but also vast areas covered in thickets of oak, juniper, boxwood and broom, and as far as the eye can see, gullied slopes tended to be fixed by colonies of Scots pine or plantations of black pine. This is a land of sunshine and luminous landscapes, dotted with hilltop villages and isolated farms, where the dual influence of the Mediterranean climate and the cool Alpine air has created an astonishing wealth of flora and fauna.
History
The village of Castrum Remusaco (the first written mention dates back to 1270) was built on the right bank of the river Oule. Remains of the ramparts and the old church of Saint-Michel can still be seen. A former fief of the barony of Mévouillon, under the suzerainty of the abbey of Bodon (founded by St Marius in 556) and later that of the abbey of Ile Barbe, Rémuzat was sold in 1305 by Baron Raymond V and the abbot of Ile Barbe to Charles II, King of Sicily and Count of Provence. From then on, it was part of the claverie de l'Oule and, until the Revolution, was under the jurisdiction of the government of Provence, the viguerie of Sisteron and the Parlement of Aix. The law of July 1790 made it a commune of the Drôme département, and the administrative reorganisation of the year VIII made it a canton administrative centre.
Origins and terroir
The area has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and is deeply marked by Gallic (Voconces) and Roman influences. The Baronnies take their name from the Barons of Mévouillon and Montauban. These two seigneuries were definitively annexed to the Dauphiné, before being ceded, as part of this principality, to the Kingdom of France in 1349. Ancillary activities, such as cocoon rearing for the region's silk mills and spinning mills, provided important sources of income and improved the lot of the peasants. During the first half of the 20th century, new crops such as lime and lavender were developed.
The region is strongly marked by events linked to the Second World War, and by the Resistance, which was very active in the area.
Agriculture continues to dominate, employing almost a third of the working population. Traditional mixed farming combined with small-scale livestock rearing has disappeared in favour of fruit trees, which are spreading inland through the valleys of the Eygues and Ouvèze rivers (apricot and cherry trees) and the Céans and Méouge rivers (apple and pear trees).
In the Nyons - Buis-les-Baronnies region, olive trees are still important (A.O.P. olives and oil from Nyons) as are vines, A.O.C. Côtes du Rhône in the Nyons - Vinsobres sector, and Coteaux des Baronnies wines (Buis-les-Baronnies - Sainte-Jalle).
Finally, the region has a large medicinal and aromatic perfume plant sector (lavender, lavandin), giving rise to a large trade in dried flowers and AOC Haute-Provence essential oil.
As in the neighbouring Buëch region, sheep are still reared, mainly for the production of Sisteron lamb, but to a lesser extent. Goat's milk is used to make the famous "picodon" cheese.
Personalities linked to the Commune
Abbé Lucien Van Damme (1901-1989), born in Belgium and the descendant of an old Brussels family, was able, for health reasons, to exercise his ministry in the sunny climate of the southern Pre-Alps. The parish priest of Rémuzat for more than 54 years (1933-1987), he was an erudite man who wrote numerous articles and valuable publications on his village and local history for researchers, linguists and sociologists.
Baronnies Provençales Regional Nature Park
The idea of creating a regional nature park in the Baronnies provençales, straddling two départements (Hautes-Alpes and Drôme) and two regions (Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) dates back to the late 1990s.
Locally, it was launched by the Groupement pour la Promotion et l'Expansion du Nyonsais Baronnies and local councillors, who were aware of the economic difficulties of this very rural region where agriculture remains under threat and development is fragile.
In 2003, the two regional councils decided to finance an opportunity and feasibility study, which enabled them to adopt a joint resolution on 17 December 2004, setting out a perimeter (130 municipalities concerned) and organisational principles.
On 30 March 2007, the Prefect of the Drôme, noting that a majority of the communes and communities of communes concerned had given their agreement, published a decree creating a Syndicat Mixte de préfiguration d'un parc naturel régional et d'aménagement des Baronnies Provençales. Its head office is in Sahune and its main task is to draw up the charter for the future Park, which will be submitted to all the municipalities in the area concerned for a vote.
The charter is due to be finalised in 2011 and the "Nature Park" label in 2012. The park project was submitted to a public enquiry from 20 June to 22 July 2011 and could bring together 130 municipalities. Its aims would be to preserve the environment, support agricultural activities and boost green tourism.
The name "Baronnies provençales" has been the subject of debate over its legitimacy, as these territories belonged to the Dauphiné. Some adjacent lands in Provence existed as enclaves in the Dauphiné in 1789, but their extent was small. However, if we refer to the map of the division of Provence in 1125, we can consider that the Baronnies were at one time part of Provence.
Alféo Lotto Documentation from the article Rémuzat from Wikipedia.
We also invite you to take a look at a slide show on the Rémuzat region and its mountain bike trails; this slide show, presented at the General Meeting in Canet-en-Roussillon on 26 November, was created by Alféo Lotto, one of the "regional players".
Another slide show on the region, by Didier Rémond, describes a mountain biking in 2009 in the Rémuzat area.https://centcols.org/util/visuAlbum.php?album=3199-002
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