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We profited from a clear, sunny day in the Southeast of France yesterday to visit Bormes-les-Mimosas, fairly quiet preceding the annual Fete du Mimosa scheduled for February (in 2009: 22 Feb - Corso Fleuri).
Always a pretty village to wander around in, and a terrace café with a lovely view south, good service and great café au lait.
Yesterday we visited the hamlet of Saint Barnabé, a tiny place at the very end of a small road accessed from the Col de Vence. Saint Barnabé is in the commune of Coursegoules, a perched medieval village in the hills north of Vence.
We hiked off across the snow-covered terrain south of the hamlet, towards the hills that overlook the Gorges de Loup. The plains here are covered in calcaire rocks, with many tiny valleys and depressions. Wandering across this terrain in the winter is best with snow-shoes (which we did not use yesterday). Movement is easier, of course, in the summer.
One region, about 1 km south of the parking area on the St Barnabé road, has large groups of tall stones with horizontal groves, fantastically shaped by erosion. We discovered vague references to these stones as the "Champs des idols" (field of idols). There are other reference using the term "village negre" (black village).
Our photos were all in full shade. On a bright, blue-sky sunny day, one large cloud masked just this region of the stones.
Following our recent snow-shoeing hike up to and across the Plateau de Calern, we've added some new photos (and some more information) to our Calern Plateau (Plateau de Calern) page.
Follow a day-trip yesterday into the hills, we've added a page for the Medieval village of Bézaudun-les-Alpes. Located north of Vence, Bézaudun-les-Alpes is an isolated little village with a pretty collection of period built stone houses, chuch and the remains of its chateau.
We are curious how the "les-Alpes" part of the name was added. The Alpes are clearly visible, nicely snow covered, but still a long way away to the northeast.
We made another visit to Gréolières village today, and added some new photos for Beyond's Gréolières village page. Much of the snow was gone, compared to our visit to the village just a few days ago.
We stopped in Gréolières village in the morning for a café creme, then went off to explore the nearby villages of Coursegoule and Bésaudun-les-Alpes. We returned to Gréolières in time for a late lunch in a café-auberge - a local dish of daube de sanglier (wild boar stew).
Wandering out to the edge of the village for an after-lunch walk, we startled a golden eagle from a tree just at the edge of the village (startled ourselves, too).
We've added a page for the Alpes-Maritimes Medieval village of Coursegoules to Beyond. Perched along a ridge in front of the cliffs of the Cheiron mountain chain, in the hills north of Grasse and Vence, Coursegoules is a 11th-century village, with its habitation actually going back to the Celto-Ligurian (pre-Roman) era.
We took a half-day trip to Coursegoules (as well as Gréolières and Bézadun-les-Alpes) this morning for some up-to-date photos and another wander around the ancient streets.
We've added a dozen new photos for Frayssinet village (Lot). This is a small village in the Lot departement in southwest France. In addition to the photos, we updated the text a bit, with some history and the tourist office information.
We also added a half-dozen photos for the even smaller village of Beaumat, a tiny place in the rolling hills a few km east of Frayssinet. Beaumat is actually a collection of little hamlets, with old houses, medieval churches and the famous <i>pigeonniers</i> (dovecotes).
We've updated the text on Beyond's Andon village page, and added a bunch of new photos, most of them taken in the past couple of weeks in the snow.
Andon is a tiny village in the hills north of Grasse, and was one of the early villages on-line in the beginning of Beyond.
We've just improved the quality of the few photos we had of the perched medieval village of Gourdon, in the Alpes-Maritime, and added a few new photos as well. The photos are mostly summertime shots, except one new photo with snow on the hills behind the village.
Our recent December-January snows didn't stick on Gourdon village, but were heavy on the hills above there and up to nearby Caussols and Calern plateaus.
Nothing to report here, just sharing a couple more of our snow photos from Wednesday's snowshoe trek across the Plateau de Calern.
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