Saint Véran one of the most beautiful villages in France.
And the highest municipality in Europe.
At 2040 meters, "the country where the rooster pecks the stars".
The town now has about 200 inhabitants.
The era of yesteryear is omnipresent: log cabins, larch wood fountains, sundials, give a unique cachet to the highest town in France.
Saint Véran is located in the Queyras, a regional natural park located in the Southern Alps along the Italian border.
A valley in the Hautes-Alpes department, which is home to 8 municipalities, and which is crossed by the Guil, a torrential river 51 km long.
The houses of St Véran are built according to a particular type adapted to the conditions and lifestyles. The ground floor is built with very thick stone walls (50 to 70 cm).
The upper part called "fuste" is made of tree trunks stacked and crossed at the corners.
This building is connected to another smaller one in stone and called
"box".
Access to the ground floor for men and animals is through a wooden door with double doors.
Sundials were very popular from the Renaissance to the 19th century. They are a stylized representation of the world. Their construction required special technical knowledge in the mathematical field, even if the time function was secondary. The 1st function was social, because it symbolized the social situation and the cultural level of the applicant. The aesthetic function was also important. The strong Italian influence means that the sundial painted “a fresco” prevails over the carved dial. On a base of fresh lime (ground limestone, burnt, reduced to powder, rehydrated), we integrate elements of the decoration (natural pigments). An Italian is famous in all the high Alps and the Queyras in particular: giovanni francesco zarbula.
He signed a large number of original sundials recognizable by flower baskets and birds.
Sundials were the way to tell the time.
There are 24 in the village.
On the dials, morals recalled that “the sun rises for all”, “every hour hurts, the last kills”,….
The time difference between the sundial and the watch is linked (apart from the time setting decided by the state), to the situation of the place in relation to the meridians of greenwich: the Queyras being located to the east of the latter, we gain a half hour.
In summer, the sundials of St Véran are 1h30 behind the clock, in winter 30 minutes. These wall-mounted sundials consist of a needle, the style, the shadow of which gives the hours which themselves are painted on the plane of the dial. A sundial can therefore only be read in the presence of the sun. It is not necessarily on the south face of a house. It could also be created - on the east and west facades. They are either morning dials or afternoon dials; in rare cases, two can be found in the same house to have all the sunny hours of the day.
The ovens, there was one per district where bread was baked for months.
The communal oven of Forannes now houses exhibitions.
The crosses adorned with the instruments of Christ's passion were erected by Catholic missions between 1920 and 1968 and surmounted by a rooster, hence the today's motto "St Véran, where the rooster pecks the stars".
The fountains served each district. All on the same model, a rectangle where the women washed the linen; and the cylinder was for animals.
The 17th century church is listed as a historical monument.
The porch incorporates two Romanesque columns carried by lions, one of which holds a child between its paws.
The village also has a reformed church; protestant temple.
The old fire engine
In 1516 a fire caused the entire village to go up in smoke. Subsequently, the village was rebuilt in several districts well separated from each other in order to create a natural firebreak.
In 1874, the village acquired its own fire engine and trained its first firefighters! This pump will work until 1967.
Find out more about Saint Véran: www.saintveran...
www.les-plus-b...
To see the photo slideshow of St Véran, it's over here: • Escapade à Saint Véran...
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Dji Osmo pocket: www.dji.com/fr...
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24 авг 2024