Tourist offices Drôme

To note the fleas and granaries, one Sunday a month, which brings together 80 exhibitors, place of March 19, 1962, wine fairs and local products, not forgetting the weekly market on Friday where we can buy fishing or apples, in the beautiful season, at a good price.

It is a valley that, curiously, enjoys growing popularity while remaining virtually unknown. Her popularity, she owes it to her torrent, the Roanne which conquered in a few years an enthusiastic and growing public for swimming. While the Valentinois have grown more and more in summer, the holidaymakers are not left, primarily the Dutch who know the country as their pocket with numerous guides, journal articles and TV spots that boast the charms of the Diois and especially its rivers, Drôme and Roanne in the lead. Result: in the heart of the summer, too high a turnout with consequences detrimental to the cleanliness of the banks and the quality of water downstream. It is a real problem that the mutation of this tourism, which is initially mild, becomes aggressive on the natural environment and on a magnificent site, victim at certain short periods of the year of pure and hard mass tourism. Well, there is much to bet that the vast majority of bathers know Roanne only what they see from their cars, along the small road that leads them to their favorite parking place, then to their favourite road to access to the Roanne and to the favourite water hole in which they are used to dipping.

And yet! What some wonders to discover in this valley! The landscape of course: a enchevêtrement valley tangle, tortured, fragmented, doe, medium mountain summits dominated by Servelle-de-Brette - 1 613 m - to the east, Angèle mountain - 1 606 m - to the south and the mountain of Couspeau - 1 544 m - to the west, vast pastoral areas, a very loose nursery of beautiful hamlets and villages among which Saint-Benoît, Aucelon, Volvent, Saint-Nazaire-le-Desert. Some of the hamlets crossing or around are almost empty. There are bare slopes filled with lavender, others are covered with black pine trees in Austria, in the campaigns for the reforestation of mountain land. In this dry world that the little gem that is Roanne that grows the waters of 4 or 5 tributaries. Then mingled between waves of limestone, in the captured gorges where the picturesque never dément, the torrent assagit by joining the valley of Drôme. This is the unknown country of the Roanne, a secret retreat from the Diois at the gates of the Baronnies.

The main agglomeration of the Roanne valley occupies a Site of choice at the crossroads of three valleys. If some likes to see in the appendix «the desert» a reference to the deforested landscape consecutive to centuries of human pressure on the forest, this origin remains dubious. The resumption of the name of a mountain south of the commune seems more likely. The human presence on these lands dates from yesterday: the caves of Reychas and Arnaud-Arnaud, on the communal territory, have delivered vestiges dating from the chasséens - 4 000 years before J.-C. On the medieval site of the commune, on the Butte slope which dominates the village in the east, it was supplanted from the th century by the current location in the valley. Before 1914, the municipality had a thousand inhabitants. Craftsmen, shops were numerous. There were eleven cafes and cattle fairs were known. It was only after the Great War that the specific decline in all mountain communes began. Today, with 168 inhabitants, Saint-Nazaire continues to play courageously the role of small capital that it has always held in a difficult environment that hardly encourages the men to settle. Hybrid and aromatic plants associated with walnut, honey, picodon and sheep farming are in front of the agricultural scene.

This tourist kiosk, networked with the one in the country of Nyons, is a convenient tourist antenna when you want to discover this small Provençal village that is conveniently located on one of the roads of lavender. With all the good addresses referring to the famous wine produced on the commune.

The Drôme Valley offers a wide range of activities, a rich cultural heritage, arts and crafts and quality local produce. You can discover the Drôme river, which rises in the mountains of the Haut Diois and flows for 110.64 kilometers to the Confluence in the Rhône valley. The region also offers outdoor activities such as cycling, mountain biking, canoeing and hiking. Don't miss a visit to France's highest medieval keep, the Tour de Crest, as well as the many hilltop villages, including Mirmande, listed as one of France's most beautiful villages.

In the heart of Saou, this tourism Office can guide you on tours and the points of interest such as the "synclinal" stone ship, bordered by cliffs, alpine lawns of emblematic "Trois Becs" as well as fauna and flora of the drôme.