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Home > Discover the Alpes de Haute-Provence > Towns, small towns and typical villages > Les Mées

Les Mées

Olive-groves under the Pénitents of Haute-Provence

TOURIST INFORMATION

Syndicat d’Initiative of Les Mées : 04.92.34.36.38.
See also : Oraison.

Lists of SELF-CATERING GITES in the district

MORE ABOUT THIS TOWN AND ITS GEOLOGICAL WEALTH

Huddled at the foot of the spectacular Pénitents rocks, fantastic Valensole pudding stone formations accumulated at the end of the Tertiary Age and which resisted the powerful erosion of the Quaternary, the town of les Mées probably got its name from the Latin word metae meaning cone, bollard or pyramid.

The alignment of these gigantic rocks has always intrigued poets and story-tellers who have used them in their works. Agricultural (it housed the department farm-school which taught farming to young rurals between 1849 to 1881), and with the rich alluvial soils of the valley and irrigation, the Pays des Mées is a productive agricultural region: fruit, vegetables, and above all in winter, the olive-tree, planted by the Romans and later by monks, which thrives in this dry permeable land at the foot of the hills.

There are 30.000 in the commune (department record) and their fruit produces a high-quality AOC oil which often wins prizes in competitions.

HERITAGE

Portique de l’Horloge : the old town clock.
Portail de la maison Crose : XVth century, listed Historical Monument.
Chapelle Saint-Roch : built on a Roman base.
Fontaine de la République : in memory of the Republicans of the Basses-Alpes in 1851.
Porte du XVIIIe siècle : beautiful door with vermiculated bosses.
Notre Dame de l’Olivier : XVIth century church, bell-tower (1852).
Monument Pasteur : erected in 1923 in memory of Pasteur who studied ways of fighting silkworm diseases here.

MUSEUMS

Musée de l’Olivier (Olive Museum) : housed in the oil cooperative. Tel. 04.92.34.07.67.
Ecomusée des Pigeonniers Dovecote Ecomuseum) : there are many remarkable dovecotes around les. Tel. 04.92.34.04.80.

MAIN EVENTS

Provencal markets : Tuesday and Friday morning.
Trail de la Pénitentissime : foot race, June.
Festivoix : music festival, end of June, beginning of July.
Journée du Mieux Vivre : September.
Salon des Antiquaires (Antiques Fair) : November.

ACTIVITIES - FACILITIES

Hiking : magnificent circuits, among them the Pénitents circuit, the Colle and the Olivier trails.
Fishing and swimming lake: vast pastoral area for walkers and sportspeople where many migratory birds have found a comfortable place to make their nests.
Fitness trail : on the banks of the fishing lake.
Skate-board area : on the banks of the fishing lake.
Town swimming pool : 2 pools, with diving boards, discovery, open from end of June to beginning of September.
La Fenière riding centre . Tel. 04.92.34.36.38.
Tennis : 4 modern courts, equipment
Medialibrary. Tel. 04.92.34.30.95.

FOR THE FAMILY

Day care centre. 04.92.34.06.79.

AN AOC OLIVE OIL

Deep yellowy-green and smooth, this olive oil has a particular very fruity taste in which specialists find many aromas such as pear or artichoke. It can have a slight pungency at the beginning of the season but it becomes softer and is never bitter.

This incomparable flavour is given to it by olives, mainly the aglandaou type which mature with the first cold snap of December, and also by the soil.

THE LEGEND OF THE PENITENTS

The Rocks of les Mées, have always intrigued men and story-tellers by their alignment. Poets and story-tellers have given full flight to their imagination and this is one of the versions: as seven beautiful Sarracen women prisoners were being led, the monks looked at them with rather too much desire for the taste of the great Saint-Donat, the hermit of Lure, on the other side of the Durance. To keep them from sinning, he petrified them on the spot in their monk's robes, and if you look closely you can even make out the Prior with his wooden cross on his chest.

AUTRES INFORMATIONS

Altitude : 410 m.
Population : 3.000 inhabitants.

To get here :

- by road : A51 motorway n° 20 Peyruis-Les Mées exit, RN 96 then D4 (Manosque, Sisteron), RN 85 (Digne-les-Bains).
- by train : Saint-Auban SNCF station, 10 km away

Les Mées

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