The Trail's Our Thing

Have you ever wondered about the stone structure in the photo on my blog header? This is a place that's very special to us, and I thought I would tell its story today-- at least as it relates to us.

The building is a "borie," a type of stone hut that is found throughout the Luberon area of Provence. The huts were constructed of stones cleared from the surrounding fields, made without mortar, the stones stacked a certain way to make them sturdy against the Mistral winds. Some of the bories were used as shepherds' dwellings, a place to shelter while they were tending to sheep or goats in remote areas. Others were used as animal pens, to store tools, or to protect a water source. Many bories stand alone, but some bories are clustered in settlements. (See this blog post about L'Enclos des Bories near Bonnieux.)

We've spotted many bories in our travels around Provence, especially while hiking. I'm not sure why, but I have a real fascination with bories. I've read that the earliest bories date to the Neolithic Age. (I'm sure these are now just piles of stone.) Most of the bories that still remain are from the 18th and 19th century, when there was a big emphasis on agricultural development and new fields were cleared of stone. There are a few thousand bories in Provence, and they are protected and catalogued in the Parc Naturel Regional du Luberon as an important part of the patrimoine. The Parc's logo is a borie.

We discovered the borie in my blog header photo while hiking near the village of Saignon in July 2006. Our trail emerged from the woods into a field, and there on the right at the end of a field was this beautiful borie. It was almost a magical moment

The first time we saw the borie

I'd actually admired this borie before-- on calendars and postcards, surrounded by lavender. Although there was some lavender nearby the first time we saw the borie, there's not much lavender in the field these days... just wildflowers. We visit the borie a couple times a year and I always take photos. It's just is a short walk off a little road in an isolated area, but you have to know that it's there. You can't see it from the road and there's definitely not a sign. The borie seems different depending on the season, the weather and even the time of day. The photo at the top of my blog was taken in May, the field dotted with colorful wildflowers; by September the field is dry and brown. I want visit the borie in winter, to see it in a field of snow. Sometime I will live in Provence again in winter.

I'd love to know the story of this borie. When was it built? Has it been restored? It's so perfectly constructed, with its pointed spike at the top. There's a sizeable well and a bit of a wall. Did a shepherd make his home here a few hundred years ago, tending to his sheep in solitude? Who owns the field now? I wish I could let them know how much this special place means to me.