Baronnies
Baronnies (more precisely: Les Baronnies ) is the historical name of a southern French landscape east and north of Mont Ventoux .
geography
The landscape of the Baronnies, which is about 250 to a maximum of about 1600 m high, has the character of a low mountain range . Today, most of the baronnies, consisting of limestone rocks and calcareous soils, belong to the Drôme department , the rest to the Vaucluse and Hautes-Alpes departments . In 1999 the area covered around 2000 km² with around 22,000 inhabitants. The most important rivers are the Ouvèze and Eygues , but the Buëch , the Céans and the upper reaches of the Lez are also worth mentioning. The climate is temperate.
In the 1990s the idea arose to set up a regional nature park. In 2003 the responsible regional parliaments commissioned feasibility studies and in 2007 the Drôme department created the first administrative structures ( Syndicat Mixte ) required for the future Parc . In January 2015 the Parc naturel régional des Baronnies Provençales was opened.
population
Since the 17th century, the eastern parts of the baronnies in particular have suffered from the rural exodus due to the harsh living conditions , which was largely brought to a standstill in the 1980s. Today, especially in the cities of Nyons , Buis-les-Baronnies , Mirabel-aux-Baronnies , Faucon and Puyméras , an increase in the number of inhabitants has been recorded again.
history
According to tradition, Hannibal moved through the area with his army and elephants during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC). The Romans later settled veterans here as farmers. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the area was devastated for centuries by the great migration, the Saracens , the Hungarian invasions and marauding gangs. Since Carolingian times , the region has belonged to the Kingdom of Burgundy , which fell to the Holy Roman Empire in 1033 .
Large parts of the country were under the rule of the barons of Mévouillon , who ruled from Buis-les-Baronnies for around 300 years . A family feud in 1125 led to the division of the area into an eastern and a western part, with the lords of the west residing in Nyons and calling themselves Barons de Montauban - from this division the plural name of the area resulted. Within a short period of time, at the beginning of the 14th century, both family lines subordinated their property to the Dauphin von Viennois , whose heirs were the French kings in 1349 .
Similar to the Luberon , the baronnies were also a center of Protestantism in the 16th and 17th centuries , so that the country suffered considerably during the Huguenot Wars (1562–1598). After two plague epidemics in 1629 and 1652, the baronnies were in complete economic disrepair.
places
Nyons and Buis-les-Baronnies are the country's historical centers. Other important places are Brantes , Faucon , Mirabel-aux-Baronnies , Mollans-sur-Ouvèze , Montbrun-les-Bains , La Motte-Chalancon , Orpierre , Puyméras , Rémuzat , Rousset-les-Vignes , Sainte-Jalle , Séderon and Venterol . The castle Aulan near Montbrun-les-Bains is also well -known.
economy
The main industries are agriculture (wine and olives , but also apricots, apples, cherries) and tourism. Nyons is a center of olive cultivation, the fruits harvested here have been awarded an Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) as a protected designation of origin. In the western part of the Baronnies tourism is expanding, which is to be further promoted with the establishment of the nature park.
Web links
- Hiking in the Baronnies (French)