Val d'Enfer

Les Baux-de-Provence

A striking mineral setting, between ancient quarry and landscape of legend, where the light changes everything with the hour of the day.

This valley of tormented rock formations, shaped by erosion and by centuries of stone quarrying, owes its unsettling name to the chaotic look of its limestone walls, pierced with caves and quarry pillars. Stone was extracted here from the 2nd century BC, for the building of Glanum and then of Arles, and quarrying continued until 1880, while from 1821 the site became a centre for mining bauxite — the ore that takes its very name from Les Baux — until 1935. Frédéric Mistral claimed that Dante had drawn on it to describe his Inferno; above all, the Provençal writer set here, in his poem Mireille, the lair of the witch Taven. Since 1975, a neighbouring former quarry has hosted a monumental audiovisual show, the Cathédrale d'Images, which became the Carrières de Lumières in 2012.

Getting there : Free access from the D27 road, right next to the Carrières de Lumières and the Pavillon de la Reine Jeanne

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound