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Valbonne (Municipality, Alpes-Maritimes, France)

by Ivan Sache

Presentation of Valbonne
Municipal flag of Valbonne

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Presentation of Valbonne

The city of Valbonne (11, 000 inhabitants) is located on the eponymic plateau in the countryside just inland from Antibes and Cannes, on the French Riviera. Valbonne is not a typical Provencal village built on a rocky spur and with narrow, steep and twisting streets. Rather, the old village of Valbonne was built on a flat area and according to a rectangular plan.

There was probably no significant human settlement in Valbonne until the end of the XIIth century, when a monk called Guillaume found there the St. Mary's abbey in a small valley watered by the rivers Brague and Merlet. The place was called Vallis Bona (the good valley), later Valbonne.
The founder of the abbey belonged to the Chalaisian order, once successful and today totally forgotten. In 1101, Bishop of Grenoble Hugues de Châteauneuf founded an hermitage for a few monks near the village of Chalais. The hermitage was located north of the city of Voreppe, on the southern foothills of the Chartreuse massif, at an elevation of 940 m. Hugues' goal was to restore the Benedictine rule in an hermitage structure. The only source of income of the first hermits was forestry and sheep-breeding.
In 1110, the monks decided to abandon Chalais because they were too poor and could not stand t