Aiguèze
| Aiguèze | ||
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| region | Occitania | |
| Department | Gard | |
| Arrondissement | Nîmes | |
| Canton | Pont-Saint-Esprit | |
| Community association | Gard Rhodania | |
| Coordinates | 44 ° 18 ′ N , 4 ° 33 ′ E | |
| height | 40-405 m | |
| surface | 20.03 km 2 | |
| Residents | 214 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 11 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 30760 | |
| INSEE code | 30005 | |
| Website | aigueze-mairieinfos | |
 View from St-Martin d'Ardèche to Aiguèze |
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Aiguèze is a French commune with 214 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) in the Gard department in the Occitanie region . It belongs to the Arrondissement of Nîmes and the canton of Pont-Saint-Esprit .
It has been classified as one of the Plus beaux villages de France ( Most Beautiful Villages in France ) since 2005 .
geography
The medieval village is located on the right bank on a rocky promontory high above the Ardèche valley , at the end of the Gorges de l'Ardèche . On the opposite side of the river is Saint-Martin-d'Ardèche .
history
The keep (11th / 12th century), visible from afar , is all that remains of the early medieval fortress with a slightly older tower. Long conflicts between the Counts of Toulouse , liege lords of the Barons of Aiguèze, and the Count-Bishops of Viviers came to an end with the crusade against the Albigensians and the victory of the Pope and King of France, which in 1384 left the fortress (where over thousand people lived) took over.
During the second half of the 15th century, Aiguèze repopulated. A hospital was built, the church with its gate from 1552 was enlarged. Some houses show structures with Renaissance windows on medieval, vaulted ground floors .
The village survived through the centuries between vineyards, olive trees and mulberry trees for silkworm breeding - until the beginning of the 20th century, when on the one hand a third of the men died in World War I , on the other hand the Archbishop of Rouen, Monseigneur Fuzet (whose mother was born in Aiguèze ) helped to restore the village in 1915 as a patron (the church was redesigned with a neo-Gothic bell tower).
Since 1905, a suspension bridge has spanned a kilometer and a half from the village across the Ardèche to Saint-Martin-d'Ardèche , a former fishing and boaters' village, which until the French Revolution also belonged to the diocese of Uzès under Aiguèze, now a tourist center in the area at the end of the Ardèche -Canyon.
Population development
| year | 1962 | 1968 | 1975 | 1982 | 1990 | 1999 | 2007 | 2017 |
| Residents | 190 | 206 | 161 | 182 | 215 | 204 | 220 | 214 |
| Sources: Cassini and INSEE | ||||||||
Attractions
- The village with its alleys and squares, the ruins of the hospital, the medieval towers, the painted nave, and the wide panorama over the Ardèche between its gorge and the Rhône valley to the silhouette of Mont Ventoux in Provence .
- Signposted main hiking trail GR4 (Mediterranean-Ocean) from Aiguèze to the Mediterranean garrigue forests (dolmens, caves towards Orgnac-l'Aven ).
Viticulture
The vineyards of the place are in the wine-growing area of the southern Rhône valley . The wines may be marketed under the designation of origin Côtes du Rhône and the qualitatively stricter Côtes du Rhône Villages .
Web links
- Local blog (French)