Travel Guide Caussols

Between the mountains and the coast, Caussols gazes up at the stars as it plunges into the sea. The village lies at the foot of the Alpine foothills, on a rugged karst plateau. It is dominated to the north by the summit of Calern, site of the Observatoire Astronomique de la Côte d'Azur, and to the south by Haut-Montet, home to a civil aviation radar station. This causse is a chaos of grey stones, with sparse vegetation. All you see is a vast expanse of mineral rock, dotted with limestone sculpted by erosion. Shaped by rainwater runoff, it is riddled with hundreds of chasms, avens and dolines, or sinkholes, where the ground collapses to leave a gaping hole at the surface. There are several caving trails on the plateau. The whole area is a calm, unspoilt natural site, shaped over the centuries by pastoralism. Witness to this past are the bories, enclosures, sheepfolds and drinking troughs that dot the landscape, and which you can discover on hikes such as the GR4. Summers in the region are hot and dry, but the cool altitude makes Caussols a very pleasant place to stay. In winter, the plateau is regularly covered in snow. Spring and autumn are particularly wet, with run-off water feeding the network that runs through kilometers of underground galleries. This climate has given rise to a specific flora and fauna. the commune is home to 250 people. Its altitude ranges from 895 to 1458 m.