# Abandoned/derelict villages in the French Alps (pic heavy)



## hnmisty (Nov 21, 2010)

Hello again, I joined a while ago but have been on radio silent, been looking through posts but not posting myself. I thought some people might find this interesting though (but for others it may be too derelict!)

These were from our holiday in the French Alps this summer, to a place we've been to loads, dating back to before I was born (and I'm 22). The last time we went up here, I think I was lucky enough to get a piggy back the whole way. Well, I don't remember it!

No idea on the history, I can't find anything about it. On the map, there were three ruins marked on, we'd only ever gone to the first before. Its called Les Surres, it was a long slog up from the village at the bottom. Our guess is that eventually life just became too hard for the people up here, there was no running water, no electricity. It would have been a hard life.









































I was very excited by this find but no one else shared my enthusiasm! 




Looked like at some point someone had been living in here












The view





The second place marked on the map was a corrigated iron roofed barn snd then slightly further on the remains of a one-room hut. This place was right out there on its own, 3-4 hours walk from the village down the bottom either way.













The third place? Large piles of stones. None the less, I snapped away. Found a couple more buildings on the way down, and everywhere was the remains of walls and pathways lost in the mists of time. And under about a foot of fallen leaves. Which were really slippy 
The third set of "ruins"




Ruins that weren't on the map. Crazy French





Not derelict, but very derserving of a mention I think, were the monuments to men executed by a unit from the 179th battalion of Grenadiers of the German army who came through the area in August 1944. Also, the borther of the man who ran the campsite where we used to stay was arrested by the Gestapo on the 27th November 1943 for being a member of the local maquis. He died/was killed on 11th March 1945, aged 21, in a camp called Ellrich. I can't find much information on it except that it was a sub-campof a camp called Dora-Mittelbau, which itself had been a subcamp of another camp at Thuringe. It came with a horrific reputation. They burned down the school in the village we stayed in but amazingly, with no one inside. 

Before I get stick for posting "curiosities", I would not feel happy posting about the history of this area without including them, they died for freedom and deserve to be remembered. 

Edmond Gallet





Refugee who was found in a tiny village that time has passed by, I doubt its changed much in a century.





They inflicted heavy losses on the German unit.
"His brothers in arms will remember him"












I believe this is where he was executed





These ones were killed in a fight with the German battalion, included an unknown Algerian









He was the tax inspector, they took him to the river by the road and shot him. 





Vultures




And a very low key camping barn, we found several of these on a different day elsewhere. 








They looked rather like Anderson shelters.

I think this is a nice summary, found it in a bread oven




"For you, its a useless oven,
For your ancestors, it was vital"
Hope you enjoyed


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## smiffy (Nov 21, 2010)

thats a grand post mate...and no need to apologise for the war related memorials either..!
On my way down through France on numerous trips I've found it incredibly sobering to come across these little monuments often on the side of tiny backroads.....I passed quite a few on the way down towards the Pyrennees a few years ago..and also in the Alps there was a massacre of Resistance fighters on a high plateau somewhere..can't think where it was exactly at the moment....anyways...they'd held out there for a number of months before the Germans finally defeated them and spared no one.........It really does make you think what some people gave for our freedom..Thanks !


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## hnmisty (Nov 21, 2010)

Yeah, it makes you think, doesn't it? Its hard to imagine how these places were seventy years ago. The second memorial is just along a dirt track, very peaceful and hard to imagine someone being executed there, even harder to think of it when you realise he was a refugee and had already fled his home to try to seek out safety. Back when my family first started going to the campsite run by Gallet's brother, the publican was a retired American paratrooper who had decided to stay after the war, think my dad had many a conversation with him. 

Its good to know that all over the place people who fought and died so that others could live in freedom have been remembered, all those little battles that never have made it into the history books and maybe never will.


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## evilnoodle (Nov 21, 2010)

This really interesting stuff, thanks for posting.
While I really enjoy more recently deserted buildings. To see the start of the dereliction process and to see what has been left behind.....I also like to see buildings in much further stages of decay and to wonder at the parts that are still standing and why were they stronger than the parts that have long since fallen.....
Also to be amazed by the strength of the wooden parts, such as lintels and door frames that still remain and are still supporting huge chunks of masonary!


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## the_historian (Nov 21, 2010)

'Superb' is the only word.


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## godzilla73 (Nov 21, 2010)

Yeah - fantastic stuff. There are lots of these kind of places up near the Trois Vallees and Les Arcs. I guess that way of life (farming your goats on the side of a mountain in summer) must just have died out. Great (but tragic) story about the memorials.
Thanks for sharing
GDZ


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## Caveman (Nov 22, 2010)

The memorials are quite moving...but there are many all over the place in France. There was one in particular that I remember that was sited outside of the place where we were staying when at the 24 hour motorbike races back in the '90s. There was a group of resistance fighters that had been caught from Aubagne and they were subsequently placed in one spot and machine gunned. The memorial is in that same place.

As far as the old buildings are concerned, I remember talking to a local about similar places on the ride down through France. Many villages were abandoned due to the earthquakes that occur every now and again. But it is surprising to see that some structures are still standing and that the materials have not been robbed out.


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## hnmisty (Nov 22, 2010)

I don't think anyone would bother nicking anything from up there, it wasn't exactly easy access. The first village (the one still mainly standing) was two hours up a steep and narrow track, then the next was a couple of hours further, then the pile of stones was an hour on from that one, or two hours up if you went up the other way. Yeag godzilla, I think it was a way of life that was doomed by modern developments, can't imagine any of the young people wanting to stay living there doing everything by hand and breaking their backs when life was easier down in the valley.

I wanted to see if I could still look up the chimney, but my sister had (misplaced?) doubts about the ability of my noggin to withstand falling masonry  !

We found a string of abandoned villages in the Spanish Pyrenees when I was younger, I can only remember one village, it was amazing. It was like the people had walked out one day and never came back. There was still grain in the animal troughs, although it had been empty for decades. I'll have to hunt out the pics when I'm home. My parents asked some locals what had happened to all the people...yeah, apparently when its ethnic cleansing, you don't ask!


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## godzilla73 (Nov 22, 2010)

hnmisty said:


> We found a string of abandoned villages in the Spanish Pyrenees when I was younger, I can only remember one village, it was amazing. It was like the people had walked out one day and never came back. There was still grain in the animal troughs, although it had been empty for decades. I'll have to hunt out the pics when I'm home. My parents asked some locals what had happened to all the people...yeah, apparently when its ethnic cleansing, you don't ask!



That'd be ETA then, I should imagine....


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## Foxylady (Nov 26, 2010)

Wonderful stuff and very moving. Seeing things like this stops you in your tracks sometimes and really makes you think about what's important, imo. Love it.


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## hnmisty (Nov 26, 2010)

Thanks Foxylady 

Godzilla- Possible. I was only a wee one at the time so I've just aged assuming it was Franco, was again a very remote place I can't imagine people would have stayed in further into the 20th century, again wouldn't have been an easy life. I'll see if the parents have more knowledge...


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