Villedieu

A village set on a small hill in rolling countryside composed of vineyards, olive trees and pine woods. Looking out over the Aygues valley, close to the Drôme Provençale. This small medieval village was originally a Templar commandery, with a castle and its tower. The oldest remnants discovered so far date the first settlement back to the Palaeolithic age: flint tools and weapons excavated on the hill of La Gardette (325 m above sea level), where the statue of Notre-Dame-de-Saint-Claude was erected in 1936.

What to see, what to visit: the parish church of Saint-Michel, which was probably formerly the tenth-century Chapelle castrale, with its steeple on the twelfth-century dungeon; the fourteenth-century nave; chapel of les Pénitents Blancs (1499); the ruins of a medieval wall with circular towers; the fourteenth-century town gate which features the Pontifical coat of arms on it; the tunnels within the village; 18 metre-high medieval dungeon (steeple); the restored château de La Baude, with its four corner towers.
Recommended activities: walks, horse riding, cycling circuits.

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