Our Blog - Pyrénées - Evol, France

This is another of the Plus Beaux Villages of France, and is a tiny little hamlet perched on the side of a hill at an altitude of a little over 2600 feet. It is a typical village whose houses with shale walls are covered with slate. Across a valley from the village is the Château d'Évol, which was built in 1260 by Guillaume de So. Today, only one tower remains in good condition but you can see several of the ruined walls.

I have quite a few pictures from various points, including those of the castle, some of the town, and others just of the countryside. We did a hike around the valley, starting at the village (which is really small!). Our hiking trail turned at the end of the village and headed up, up, and even further up the side of the mountain. It then leveled off and we followed the contour of the mountain, around and over a stream where the rain and snowmelt flows down. Then around on the other side of the valley, past the castle, and then back down to the parking area. We were following a specific path, which was marked with yellow and white indicators.

We didn't go into anything, so just outside pictures, starting with the church, then heading down basically the 1 main street in the village. A couple of times, Lucy had wanted to go visit someone's house but we didn't let her. They also have the interesting bread ovens on the sides of the houses, although this one tended to be more square in shape than in the town of Castelnou. The roofs were also different here than in other villages, being covered almost entirely with shale. This comes from the mountain, as we saw lots of this type of rock on our walk.

And here we start our climb!

A few more pictures of the church, from above it this time.

I tried not to put too many castle pictures in, as they basically all look the same even though I took them from various angles. As you can see, it is pretty much in ruins.

And then just the countryside .... in a few of the pictures, you can still make out a tiny bit of snow! There was still quite a bit of water coming down ... we mentioned that to our host at the B&B that we stayed and and she mentioned that she has taken this walk many times and it was always dry, but that was in the fall.

Lucy decided to take a break ... look at that tongue!

We made it around and started out descent, heading around the other side of the castle. Here you can see that one of the round towers is still mostly intact.

And our final descent, you can see the village below us with the bell tower of the church in the middle.