Sainte-Croix-de-Quintillargues - Grand Pic Saint-Loup tourist office

Playground
Picnic Area
Bus - Line 610 - plan
Historical heritage
Prehistoric heritage

The village of Sainte-Croix-de-Quintillargues has a unique ancestral know-how, the traditional manufacture of charcoal, and tries to pass on this heritage through its annual Festival des charbonnières and the Ecosite trail.

Today's garrigue landscapes are the result of several factors that have influenced the environment over the last four millennia, one of which was the exploitation of wood.

Sainte-Croix-de-Quintillargues has decided to highlight a disappeared know-how, that of the charcoal makers. The village holds the memory of generations of men and women from the woods who lived for several months of the year in tiny dry-stone huts, the charbonnières.

Cutting green oak, watching over the cooking of the skilful grindstones day and night, then delivering the charcoal obtained to the town, this was the daily life of those who left a deep imprint on our landscape.

The walk can be extended by a visit to the church, the particularity of which is that it was raised during the Hundred Years' War. The Romanesque building, which is listed, still has clearly visible defensive remains which contrast with the finely jointed cold stonework.

Built at the crossroads of two major roads of prehistoric origin and taken over by the Romans, on the site of a villa established by the legionary Quintillius, Sainte-Croix-de-Quintillargues retains few traces of this.