Travel Guide Gilette

Gilette is one of the many perched villages of the Alpes-Maritimes filled with charm and enjoying a beautiful view. Built at an altitude of 478 meters on the banks of the Estéron river which gives its name to the valley, it is dominated by the ruins of its ancient castle. The site was occupied by Celto-Ligurian peoples and then by Romans who left ruins, a secondary passageway for Puget-Théniers and above all the cultivation of the olive tree which has endured To protect itself from the Saracens, the village of Gilette was established between the5th and 7th centuries at its present location. Because of its almost inaccessible position, the citadel became a stronghold. The famous "Battle of Gilette" of October 18, 1793 is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and represented on a painting by Roehn in the Versailles museum Once again a Sardinian town in 1815 when the Empire collapsed, it became French again following the plebiscite of April 15 and 16, 1860 by a unanimous vote. Gilette comes alive all year round with events such as Saint-Pancrace, which honors the olive tree and offers the opportunity to taste the brissaudà, a kind of toasted bread dipped in hot olive oil. Without forgetting the Corpus Christi with its slug procession (illumination of the streets with snail shells filled with olive oil in which a wick is lit at nightfall, a widespread custom in the County of Nice) and the Assumption, the most important of the Gilettoises events in terms of festivities, since it involves several days of dances and entertainment in August