Les Baux-de-Provence

Les Baux-de-Provence occupies a bare limestone spur in the Alpilles hills, and the village and the ruined castle above it seem to grow out of the rock itself. From the edge of the plateau the view runs south across the plains, where olive groves fill the valley. The name comes from the Provençal word for a rocky escarpment, and the village in turn gave its name to bauxite, the ore of aluminium, which the geologist Pierre Berthier identified here in the early 1820s and which was mined in the area until the end of the twentieth century.

People sheltered on this naturally defended site very early: a cave nearby holds a collective burial of the early Bronze Age, and in the second century BC the Celts used the spur as a hill fort. In the Middle Ages it became the seat of the lords of Les Baux, a powerful and turbulent family whose domain once covered 79 towns and villages. They claimed descent from Balthazar, one of the three Magi, and took as their emblem a silver star with sixteen rays, recalling the star of Bethlehem, with the motto "Au hasard, Balthazar". Their fortress, built between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, spread over some seven hectares; its keep still dominates the village, and the castle became known for a refined court culture. After the line died out in the fifteenth century, Les Baux passed with Provence to the French crown. Under later lords it became a centre of Protestantism and rebellion, and in 1631, at the inhabitants' request, Louis XIII allowed the fortifications to be dismantled, which explains the shattered silhouette of the castle today.

In 1642 the town was granted as a marquisate to Hercule de Grimaldi, Prince of Monaco, and the title of Marquis of Les Baux is still borne by the heir to the Monegasque throne. The village below the ruins keeps the Church of Saint Vincent, where a pastoral Christmas Eve ceremony, in which shepherds bring a newborn lamb in a cart drawn by a ram, has been revived since 1902. In the nearby Val d'Enfer, vast abandoned limestone quarries host Carrières de Lumières, where images are projected across some 4,000 square metres of rock walls. Les Baux lies within the Alpilles Regional Natural Park, gives its name to an olive-oil appellation and to the Baux-de-Provence wines, and is a member of the Most Beautiful Villages of France.

Getting there

Les Baux-de-Provence is about 15 km northeast of Arles, the nearest city, and about 22 km south of Avignon. The nearest airport is Avignon–Provence Airport (AVN), about 20 km away. The village is reached by the D27 road from Maussane-les-Alpilles.