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val d'Enfer
The Val d'Enfer is a rocky valley carved by water erosion, at the foot of the village of Les Baux-de-Provence. Its name is said to come from the Latin infer, meaning lower. Limestone and bauxite quarries were worked there, bauxite extraction having ceased in 1935. The old town of Les Baux clings to its rock above this chaos of scree, in a wild setting that contrasts with the mildness of the Mediterranean climate.
The place feeds many legends. Frédéric Mistral suggested that Dante was inspired by it for his Inferno, a hypothesis that historians consider poorly supported but that guides readily repeat. In Mistral's poem Mireille, the witch Taven lives in its caves. It is also said that the Saracen chief Abd al-Rahman hid a treasure there guarded by the Golden Goat. Jean Cocteau shot The Testament of Orpheus there, and the old quarries have hosted giant image projections since 1977, now called Carrières de Lumières.
